Yeah, I guess for a lot of people a bit of shiny stuff inside, some heated seats, and a "discount" seals the deal.You used to be able to get an AWD mid trim trax discounted for $20k. Due to general low discounts on Subaru that's similar pricing to a base Impreza, couldn't touch a Crosstrek for that. This is when the Trax makes sense for small families. Doesn't make the Trax better, just appealing.
Lets be realistic here, these aren't some dumpster fire vehicle. The average owner is unlikely to see a huge difference in ownership cost.
The base Impreza/Crosstrek's are bigger inside, safer, gets better mileage, and come the way I like, simple with pwr locks and windows, with a manual trans for ~$20k .
I guess GM's rebadged stuff is probably getting better since the early Daewoo days, but they don't win too many practical comparisons. Resale probably isn't great either I assume on the Trax, but I find the other Daewoo's are never cheap enough to be a good used deal either... I guess atleast GM put their common engine in the Trax, and not the Daewoo one.