A decision that was baffling at the time because
A) I would assume they sold a pretty good number of fleet sedans AND
B) the lack of a true entry-level vehicle pushes people into like, a Nissan Versa
Literally this! "Nobody will ever want to buy a reasonably sized automobile again, and there will not be one single medium-term consequence for this choice" is some major business genius behavior.
I see so many Corollas and Civics and Altimas and Chargers etc that there's no way it's just because people don't want them. It's because they can't justify pricing them at $50k like they can an SUV or truck.