Not trying to speak on RedRover's behalf, but I stay pretty involved on a variety of forums and see a wide-ranging set of opinions on vehicles. Furthermore, I've spent the last 2 years in particular reading, test-driving, talking with people who own various vehicles trying to decide which one to buy. I've waited to purchase until LR came out with the Defender because I have been genuinely interested. Since you asked I think the below are the main reasons I see for why people don't care for modern LR.
1) Unreliable- No car company is immune from gremlins and issues in such a complex product, but LR seems particularly likely to catch these problems. An enthusiast like myself recognizes that part of that is probably from the fact that they are pushing technology and that will always lead to some quirkiness. I can respect that, but I'd love to see them go a touch slower in their product development, work out the kinks, and then bring it to market. Sure, develop something that's cutting edge, but take the time to get it right before you bring it out. You don't have to go as slow as Toyota, but their history of unreliability is pretty unmatched in any company that hasn't already gone out of business.
Despite its fetching design, Range Rover's compact luxury SUV was a hotbed of frustration and unreliability over 40,000 miles.
www.caranddriver.com
*Some Quotes- "Wore out it's welcome", "hotbed of frustration and unreliability", "We can just imagine how many days out of use the Velar would've logged had we asked the service techs to chase down every intermittent warning light, electronic glitch, and powertrain hiccup that seemingly came and went at random throughout most of its time with us."
Yes, the Velar is not the Defender, but it is a very recently developed Modern Land Rover and you have to wonder how much the culture of the organization that created this has really changed in creating the Defender.
2) Expensive- these problems are only exacerbated by the fact that it costs so much money. LR keeps bragging about the $49K US price tag, but there will be few people who order that and you won't be able to find one of those on a lot. My guess is that the avg Defender will sell closer to $75K. That's crazy money for most people, maybe even more so for the kind of people who'd ever actually take it off-road. For reference, you can buy a 2 yr old Pre-Owned Certified Land Cruiser for around $60K, get a V8 and shed the reliability concerns forever. You could buy a 2020 Jeep Rubicon for low $50s, put on an ARB Bumper, LED Lights, Rear Cargo Box, Air Compressor and Warn Winch and still have $10K left over to take a trip.
3) They've mostly abandoned the Off-Road Community- Form follows Function- meaning- you can discover the intent (function) of a particular thing by looking at it's form. Looking at a modern LR it doesn't take long to conclude that they don't really care about off-roading. They are not easily modifiable- not really. Sure there's Johnson Rods and Lucky 8- all great vendors and I appreciate what they are trying to do. However, look at the rim sizes LR chooses, the size of the brakes they use, the placement of radiators, the lack of even modest off-road worthy articulation, (forget about even light rock-crawler articulation)- they are not really building a vehicle meant for off-road use. They are building something that is meant to give a passing glance at it's off-road heritage mostly for marketing purposes and perhaps the occasional wet gravel road. That kind of style over substance is not cool to most of the off-road community.
I was really interested in this vehicle- enough to wait 2 years before I purchased so I could see the Defender come out. It's better than what they've done in the past from appearances, but with how complex they've made it I wouldn't touch one for the next 3-5 years until they prove it's not a $75K ticket to the service department.
