> I am personally anti-populism, and think that civil cases with large financial stakes should be decided by an (appointed not elected) judge- not a random group of folks who can afford to skip work for two to four weeks.

US Federal judges are all appointed, not elected, so not much to worry about there.

The judge and jury serve different purposes in the US system. The judge's job is to decide questions of law, the jury's is to decide questions of fact. Appeals courts can generally only consider failures by the initial judge on questions of law, meaning it only gets overturned if the first judge really screwed up their job.

Given that, it's not clear to me how removing the jury improves the system.