I kinda doubt that wind tunnel tests favor high roofs, tiny windows and "muscular" wheel wells. Modern cars look like shit because they look like gaming PCs circa 2010 and that's a shit aesthetic that shouldn't please anyone who was born after 1998 because they fucking grew up.
People should really be pointing a finger at the government. Their regulations backfired and they haven’t done anything about it.
But the desire for larger, taller vehicles in North America wasn't all about fuel economy relaxation either. The minivan replaced the sedan and station wagons as family cars in the 80's, and cross over SUVs replaced minivans in the 00's. Even small cars of the 90's like Camarys and Civics ended up bigger and taller in the 00's.
I’ve met actual contractors with overgrown SUVs/trucks who prefer a Prius. The big trucks are macho, but they suck for loading and unloading. A couple weeks ago, I helped load some furniture into an Escalade. It’s truly remarkable how little interior volume the Escalade has compared to how large it is. And have you ever looked under a modern overgrown vehicle? They are high off the ground, and they may rock the approach, breakover and departure angles, but check out all the suspension components, the axles, and the differentials hanging down below the wheel axis! All that height buys very little usable clearance if you’re driving over crap.
I think Telo is on to something (although they seem to be nowhere near having a vehicle to sell). The automakers are largely not selling high-capacity, efficient, easy to load vehicles. They’re all over Asia, though.
That is still orthogonal to the earlier claim that aerodynamics are irrelevant if you're just going to have any oversized vehicle anyway and style should be promoted. Particularly on the luxury end of the spectrum aerodynamics are even more important as they directly go to road noise and handling. If you have poor airflow, you get turbulence, and turbulence is loud. If there is a bunch of lift generated at speed, the steering can get twitchy, and feel unconfident on the highway. It takes the luxury out of the ride if you sacrifice aerodynamics for style.