- Chrome / Aluminum: Its Everywhere. Literally. Mirrors, grille, trim, etc. Tacky plastic aluminum. In fairness, the new ones have more exterior black trim and looks a load better. The aluminum just dates the design IMHO.
- No Buttons: What began as looking like a minimal, elegant designed cockpit, void of buttons is actually a user PITA. I really did like the lack of buttons and dusty spots, but after daily use, having to go through the head unit / touch screen for common tasks related to the radio selection or climate control gets old. The interior needs just a handful more buttons for frequently used tasks.
- Safety features: Lane keeping assist can be invasive. My wife and daughters refuse to drive the car. Yes, you can turn it off, but they don't like it. So no on drives it but me.
I agree with much of what the Big wrote in his OP. I've pulled out three of his bullet points here. I'm not an XC90 owner but a '22 XC60 T8 ER owner with the new Google OS. The things listed above are the same on all Volvos. I could not get myself to buy a Volvo despite trying my darndest to so during 2017-2022, and in that interim I bought Porsches for myself and a RAV4 Prime for my wife. I finally got the '22 XC60 because it's a plug-in hybrid with (finally) a decent all-electric range and a truly decent drivetrain (the best drivetrain in a Volvo in my opinion by far since the pre-4-cylinder-only era). These 2-liter, 4-cylinder over-charged engines have been underwhelming, and the bigger the Volvo, the worse they are. Volvo really needs to go to electrification as fast as possible, and run away from making ICEVs. (I test-drove an XC90 soon after it came out, ca. 2003, and remember it being really lethargic driving up a hill -- not impressed with an engine that was too small for too heavy a vehicle.)
I agree on the usual points about great visibility in these Volvo SUVs (and wagons), and their safety is great as far as the non-software parts are concerned. Given how bad Volvo software is, I have little faith in software to protect my life in a serious accident, but hope that the metal cages would do so. The LKA is indeed horrible, but then it's really horrible in all cars (and in my opinion should not be allowed in cars); ACC is really the only automated type of driving that automakers should be allowed to put in their cars ... drivers need to steer and stay alert!
The "no buttons" issue is huge. Other notable automakers are not following the "Tesla route" on this topic, but sadly Volvo and Polestar are doing so. This makes Volvo and Polestar inherently unsafe cars, because they require the driver to spend huge amounts of time fiddling with their eyes on a finicky touchscreen for basic things like audio, climate, phone, and drive mode when all of those things should be mandated by federal law to be in physical buttons/dials -- whether on or off the steering wheel (certainly phone and drive modes should be on the steering wheel, with gauges in the instrument screen). A recent poll at an XC60 owners forum on Facebook with hundreds of responses showed that about 2/3 desire more physical buttons in Volvos for these things that drivers need to access quickly and often. The federal government should mandate that a touchscreen cannot be utilized (i.e., touching it will do nothing) while the car is in motion -- for safety. Then, as other automakers continue to do, put important things into buttons/dials for the driver when driving.
This huge brain fart and cultish following of Tesla-stupid design has taken the "best safety automaker" crown away from Volvo -- years ago now. My 2001 V70XC wagon has only buttons and dials -- no touchscreen -- and I can access everything by feel/touch without even looking; that is good safety design in a car. I suspect that Volvo loses huge numbers of sales because of this -- lack of physical buttons and crappy touchscreen with tiny icons and badly designed software with stuff buried in sub-menus. It certainly was a huge factor in my not buying a Volvo from 2017 to 2022 and buying several other cars instead; what got me to buy my '22 XC60 despite the horrible access-to-functions issues is the more-powerful "Extended Range" drivetrain and other practical aspects of the car when ignoring the lack of buttons and horrible screens. (Yes, the current Volvo instrument-panel screens have to be just about the worst in the luxury automotive industry, except for Tesla which has none.)
I hear lots of Volvo people saying, regarding the buttons issue: but you have voice "control". That's a cop-out and not a dependable "solution". I can't get voice commands to do half the things I want/need, and what it does do, I often have to repeat 2 or 3 times. And I often don't want to use voice because I'm talking with passengers (or passengers are talking to passengers) or I'm on the phone or I'm listening to radio/music, etc., etc. No, voice commands are NOT a proper excuse for eliminating buttons/dials.
And chrome is much more of a subjective thing than the above topics, but I sure do hate chrome inside and outside cars, as well, and the cheap-looking chrome in today's Volvos makes them look like $20k cars inside, not like real luxury cars. My 2001 V70 has no chrome at all inside, and the only chrome outside is lettering/badging and the wheel hubs. I have an R-Design XC60, so the exterior is pretty blacked out (except for lettering/badging and wheels, again), and I'm thankful that Volvo allows that on the exterior. But I really prefer the interior of my 2001 V70 wagon to that in my '22 XC60 in almost every single way; the only thing I really want my computer screen for is maps, and the Google Maps in the new Volvos are superior to the crap that is in Sensus (and another reason why I wouldn't buy a Volvo prior to the '22 models going back to 2017). But a big design mistake by Volvo was trying to cram Google OS into the same apparent hardware unit/space, when they should have totally redesigned that space. Our other cars of recent years have horizontal screens (Toyota, Porsche), and horizontal screens really are superior for a driver, in my opinion to vertical computer screens.
Three more safety thoughts:
I don't know how it is in your XC90s, but in my XC60 I have no way to access tire pressure in psi in either my computer screen or in my instrument panel (where it should be, behind the steering wheel). In our Toyota and Porsches, I'm always checking the tire pressure in my instrument panel after I hit something in the road or hit an especially bad pothole, but I can't do this in my XC60. What the heck?
And I have gotten the optional infrared ("night vision") camera in my Porsche Panamera, which is really good for safety; it allows me to see pedestrians and animals at night whether near road's edge or actually in the road, when I can't see them due to darkness or to blinding on-coming headlights, and it allows you to see through dense fog in daytime or nighttime -- all of which can be a lifesaver. I do not understand why Volvo, the "safety automaker", doesn't offer infrared cameras as an option.
Third, glass roofs are inherently less safe than are all-metal roofs. I want the option (as I can get in Toyotas and Porsches) to have an all-metal roof. I don't want to have to worry about things hitting the roof glass and cracking/breaking the glass (a not-all-that-uncommon thing), or about excess glare/heat from roof glass, or about having to keep roof glass clean, or about problematical seals leaking water into the cabin from roof glass (something again too common in Volvos and other cars with glass roofs), or about how less safe roof glass is than metal in a roll-over accident.
. The horsepower increase was also worth it 
. From a distance it works with Not-Knowing-Any-Better drivers!
