I think it's hard to argue that modern cars are objectively better - reliability and interior quality being the two obvious areas for me. As others have said though (including in the article), car designers are at risk of losing sight of what makes cars enjoyable, at the expense of more speed and grip. As brillo said, I think there is a happy medium, and we're probably getting past that now (although there are still currently great new cars out there).
Nice article though