To me there's a difference between an offline ECU that just locally monitors sensors and controls components, and a connected modem and software updates. The former seems perfectly reasonable, and necessary for things like abs, which is obviously a good thing.
Can confirm and they were shit. The transmission control module died on mine which means the car is dead. The TCM also died on everybody else's fiesta and fusion for a multi-year model span. I could not get a new one for 8 months while it sat in a garage.
The parent has a Fiesta ST which has never included a TCM.
The powershift dual clutch transmissions had many shoddy model years, but the manual Fiestas were pretty reliable. I drove my 2011 model until earlier this year without any major problems.
Consumers tend to heavily underestimate the point in time from which cars started absolutely relying on modern electronics.