My completely bias and somewhat unhelpful review of the gen4.

Ok so I weakened and went to have a play in a gen4 at Appleyard Canal Road.

No. Sorry.

Things I don't like.
You sit on it not in it, the seats are nasty.
Are we sure the 1.5 isn't a diesel? Very harsh and intrusive and quite a vibration on idle.
The boot space is ridiculous, my 10kg working cockerpoo wouldn't be able to wriggle round if the seats were up.
It's too tall and the tyres look too skinny almost like a crossply.
Collision avoidance, no.
Road sign repeats, no.
Auto headlights, clever but too sensitive.
Lane departure warning, no.

Things I like.
The ally wheels.

Sorry but you would need to take my dog hostage to get me to drive one of those daily.

Seats are way better than my previous Jimny, engine sounds a little agricultural granted but goes well. It’s 80% more civilised on the road than previous model. Some gadgets are overkill but I’m made up with mine.

The seats compared to my old worn out ones would be better I'm sure but compared to my current recaros not even close. My m13 has nearly 90k on and is way way smoother and quieter than the 1.5 in their demonstration one. Again suspension wise the dead stuff I took off was way worse but compared to the Gucci stuff i have on now that offers supreme control...

Like I said I'm bias.

Your final take away is a little harsher than mine but I don't think you are being biased. I think it is more likely you developed an opinion going in with wide open eyes.

I was leaning a little to the negative side when I went to see one at the Philippine auto show. The result for me (from a slightly negative starting point) was that I didn't think it was as bad as I first thought. I think if someone with a positive opinion were to review it, and were totally objective, they would likely start to feel some disappointment.

An interesting read from the Auszookers forum:
Auszookers: New Jimny Pics page 3

While that thread needs to be kept in the context that most of their members have a universal dislike for Jimnys, the main point of page 3 still reflects what I see as unfortunate: in place of taking the opportunity to engineer and improve some areas, they decided to stick on a new body.

The thing is that the gen4 is really a second iteration of the coil sprung Jimny and I'm with you on the comment about just sticking a new body on a lightly revised frame, yes it looks retro and yes there are limits to the available space in such a small vehicle but I honestly think that more effort could have been put to modernise and rectify some of the known chassis issues that on the face of it have been left alone. Why isn't it permanent 4x4, why do the king pins appear to be identical, why if it must be part time 4x4 are there still vacuum hubs and so on? It just could have been better.

Oh and I know the answer to the above questions; cost benefit calculations, it's cheaper and more profitable for Suzuki to give it some gizmos to fall in with current market trends than it is to indulge in costly engineering that is of no benefit to an average 3 year owner, after all its a cheap car and when the warranty is up buy another.