My wife's 99 F-150 has 50k miles on it and it has always felt more solid, better built, and nicer materials than my 2000 SVT ever was.
This is why there is still a gap: American mfr's emphasize taking cost out of every vehicle. Thus decontenting, and cheaper materials thorugh a product cycle. Both my wife and I work in the domestic industry and we see it causing problems almost daily. Why spend the engineering $$$ to reduce cost instead of improving the value for the same cost? I do not notice this trend with imported cars. Actually, the opposite.
Also, reduced # of configurations (options) of the imports streamlines the manufacturing.
I don't see the long term reliability of the engines that far off each other, but everything else it seems the domestics don't care. Features over quality.
