I don't think the Accord is a "luxury" car, but it IS very luxurious for a car in its price range (and thus its competition). I mean, what do you want for 30 grand?
On that note, my previous car was a 1999 540i 6-speed (original MSRP $56K). THAT was a luxurious car - as defined in the details. I took off a door panel to add some Infinity tweeters and was amazed by the quality of materials. The door speaker even had its own molded acoustic enclosure. The vapor barrier was a special-molded rubberized foam sheet, not a caulked-in sheet of plastic. No cheap plastic as on my AV6 (or on the 8th gen AV6). Most telling was how I could not hear my wife talking to me from outside the car, when I was inside with the doors closed. In my AV6 it's quiet, but I can still clearly hear outside sound. And my 540 was a car whose design debuted in 1997 (in the US).
I could go on, but my point is that while luxury is difficult to define, certainly one aspect must be quality of materials. That said, even though the 540 had that quality of materials, could handle rings around the Accord, and go and stop much better, there is a price one must pay for that which goes beyond MSRP. That price includes significantly higher insurance, maintenance, and repair costs, as well as less reliability North of 70K miles. Most importantly is the price paid in time and marital tension in dealing with break-downs and paying for repairs (to my wife's dismay).
Why do I have my AV6 now? I didn't want to pay that price. For the lower overall price the Accord V6 demands, it (7G and 8G both) offers an excellent balance of acceleration, handling, affordability, reliability, and economy of operation.
