I agree with the reliability, but haven't seen that in the rest of what you mention. I'm definitely a car snob, and have driven high end luxury and sports cars from the Japanese and American companies, and they just don't have the driving experience, attention to detail, etc. of say, even a base model Porsche. It's tiny details most people probably don't notice- keeping the wind noise down with the windows and/or convertible top down, using corrosion resistant fasteners and coatings everywhere, perfectly tuning the pedal responsiveness and steering feel, balancing the weight, getting the gear ratios and/or shifting programs just right for performance driving, putting pillars in the right place for road visibility, etc. Also things like massively over-sizing the cooling and braking systems so they don't overheat under extreme conditions or hard use.

There is also the effectivness of the traction and stability control systems- which I think is related partially to oversizing the brakes. Even "serious" offroad vehicles from Lexus and Toyota don't have nearly as good of traction control offroad as a basic German passenger car.