Whoever told you Accords have degraded in quality is flat wrong. I no longer own a '97 (traded for my S2000), but I miss it terribly. It's such a great car. I would highly recommend it.As for quality concerns, let me alleviate them now. I have a friend who delivered pizzas in high school and he had a '90 Accord. In 2000 (when I lost touch with him) that car had 1,200,000 miles on it and never needed serious work (other than the normal check ups and a rebuild at 800,000). Honda quality is second to none.