I noticed quite a large blind spot in the Fords I used to get a hire cars for work. The worst has the Mondeo, and it also had a horrible distortion effect at the corners of the windscreen which meant your field of view was missing at the very edge. I discovered this one day when stopped at a pedestrian crossing and I couldn't actually see the people crossing the road unless I moved my head back and looked out of the drivers door window. That was a bad design flaw....but that's not to say it isn't without it's faults (rattles at times, poor A/C control, large blind spot, annoyingly hard headrests to give a few niggles)
Ford have always been pretty good at creating sporty versions of their normal models. I used to love driving the Mondeo ST24 I often got from the hire company. That had some good acceleration. But I wasn't impressed by the interior. Very plasticy and it sometimes rattled and vibrated as you mention your Focus does. I've always been left with the impression that in the past few years Ford have made a big improvement in the actual build quality of their cars externally, but they are still not so great on the inside. One thing I really hate is the Focus dashboard. It looks so ugly with pointless wasted space such as that big space to the left of the main dials that end in a triangle. Such a shame as the exterior and engines are pretty good these days.