Jeep is a proven brand, despite having somewhat low reliability ratings and not the best gas mileage across the lineup. It certainly isn't vilified as evil like Hummer is, and Chrysler would be insane to sell off the line.
Chrysler in general has been more about design than application. They have come up with a lot of "must-have" designs, but for some reason they never quite get the nuts and bolts just right. The main components are there, but the little stuff just gets them every time.
Brands like Toyota focus on a few models and try to make them as good as possible. Traditional Big 3 philosophy was to make a whole lot of models, so you can appeal to every niche. I think that's changing. Does GM really need Chevy, Buick, Pontiac, GMC, Saturn, Hummer, SAAB, and Cadillac on the roster? Ford has seemed to be able to trim it down to 5 brands. UAW has a lot more to do with this than people would like to believe.
The argument that people are nit-picking and driving down the ratings is just garbage. People nit-pick every new vehicle and get whatever they can out of a warranty. My Toyota Sienna had a window arm retaining bolt that broke. My Saturn Vue sunroof opened one winter on its own and stuck that way, but I still could drive home. My 2000 TJ had a few "nit-noid" issues while I owned it, including a gauge cluster that died after 2 months. Who needs gauges? The engine ran just fine. Neither one of these problems were show-stoppers, but you can be darn sure that the manufacturers paid to fix them. Jeep has a bunch of reliability issues, from the Grand Cherokees down to the JKs, and it's been that way for years. The vast, vast majority of the problems are minor, but there is a trend.
