Including a good review from Car and Driver...
http://www.edmunds.com/pontiac/aztek/2001/consumer-reviews.h...
http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/pontiac-aztek-gt-road-te...
"Many people in the car business do not understand that a vehicle has an image. To them, a vehicle is a collection of attributes. If your attributes are better than the other guy’s attributes, you’re gonna win. It’s engineer thinking, along totally rational lines. Their advice to an alcoholic is “stop drinking—is there something about that you don’t understand?” That’s not how people actually think."
If you add up an Aztec as a collection of attributes, it was a damn fine vehicle. If you engage with it from the perspective of an actual consumer -- a sometimes irrational, emotionally-influenced person whose sense of self is in some small way defined by the vehicle they drive -- the Aztec is a fiasco. Part of the function of a car is how the driver feels to own it, so form is part of the function. And the Aztec was a complete failure at providing that part of the function.
If you look a few years later, the entire car industry was racing to get "Azteky" cars into the market. Honda Element, Scion xB, Nissan? Cube are all cars that have similar design/feature goals.
These days, I'd honestly rather look at (or be in) one of those boxy models than the ubiquitous "melted soap bar" of the late '90s/early '00s. At the very least, those cars are clear about the owner's interest in prioritizing function over perceived form. It's possible that the Aztek's "neither hot nor cold" aesthetic is part of what doomed it.
Of them the best seller, the Element, enjoyed mild success only because it missed its target market entirely. Instead of the "young urban males" it was targeted at, it was instead popular with older people who wanted an economical vehicle with easy cargo access, and dog owners, who wanted a n interior that was easy to clean.
You get no points for nailing your demographic to the tune of 27,000 cars a year at peak sales, when you need to sell 30,000 cars a year just to break even.
Full disclosure: I was until very recently an owner of a Honda Element and loved it.
I wonder if there's a paradoxical filter effect at play. If a car is really obviously bad (for most people) then they won't buy it. But if a car is bad in a more subtle way, maybe people are more likely to buy it and then hate it later. Thus, one might expect overall terrible cars (in the eyes of the general population, at least) to have a fanatical following, since they're the only ones who would buy it.
It seems that the Leyland P76 has a similar history; what was actually a decent vehicle is now remembered as a complete failure for a variety of reasons.
http://www.drive.com.au/motor-news/legend-of-the-lemon-20130...
http://colorado-artist.com/crv/images/Yakmia_SpareTime_22.jp...
Or here's a wildcard. It's similar to the Aztek, the GMC Envoy XUV. The Aztek gets about 94 cubic ft of cargo room, the XUV is 95.5. You won't find one new, but so long as you get the V8 4wd model it will last a long, long time with many replaceable parts.
(I own one and it's hella useful, but that's the only good thing I can say about it).