People on this newsgroup have been saying for quite some time that the Focus's reliability problems were mostly confined to the early models. Now, Consumer Reports agrees with them. The reliability ranking for the Focus SVT has climbed to average, allowing the magazine to recommend the car.
The news comes in the December 2003 issue, which has a test on competing sports cars like the Subaru WRX and Mitsubisihi Evo. The SVT wasn't tested, but was recommended based on past performance, and the newly average reliability. The magazine didn't say if the reliability applied to all Focus models or just the SVT.
Why the change of heart? I think it took some time for people to by 2002 models and report their long-term reliability to CR. From the magazine's standpoint, it makes sense to play it conservatively until the survey results clearly show improvement.