Unfortunately all that engineering talent is wasted designing ever more wasteful vehicles that are ruining the environment. Kind of like loads of CS engineering talent is wasted improving insidious ad technology that is ruining society.

Take a look at the innovation in the manufactured/modular home space. The quality/price ratio has been improving tremendously. Even for site-built homes, using things like prebuilt trusses is an improvement.

Even the 5+1 apartments that are disliked for their uniform aesthetics are a big step up on quality/price than the approaches of decades past.

There are manufacturers such as Huf Haus that make very high quality (luxury) prefabricated homes[1]. They feature all the modern fittings you could want, and they are installed in the factory not on site. There was an episode of Grand Designs which featured a Huf Haus[2], it was constructed in a week on a concrete slab.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huf_Haus

[2] https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2go2ld

Yeah even talking about cookie-cutter houses is non-PC

Well even cookie-cutter houses used to be pretty nice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Modern_Homes