Outside the Northeast Corridor, you're absolutely right, it's not great.
Acela runs inside the Northeast Corridor, however, and for that market even the current version is pretty compelling. I take it periodically to travel between DC and NYC; it costs approximately the same as flying, but offers wide seats with built-in power sockets, lets you get up and stretch your legs if you want to, and doesn't require you to run the ridiculous security gauntlet that's mandatory at airports. Plus it drops you right in midtown Manhattan, so if you're there on business getting to where you probably want to go is easier and cheaper than it would be from an airport.
The main downsides are that it's a little slower than flying (though if you include time spent dealing with airport security the difference narrows), the trains are starting to show their age a little, and in NYC they drop you at Penn Station, which is a structure straight out of Dante's Inferno. New, faster trains would help ameliorate two of these three problems. (I'm not sure anything could be done to improve Penn Station, except maybe burning it to the ground and salting the earth it stood on.)
I took the NE Regional last weekend and I was honestly really impressed. The WiFi was fast enough, seat was comfortable and it was remarkably on time.
I'm planning a trip to NYC in a few weeks and I realized that LGA to midtown Manhattan costs about $50 via UberX each way the Acela ends up being as expensive or cheaper while still being faster!
Yeah, the Northeast Regional is a little slower than Acela, and the train cabins are a little dowdier, but other than that it's not bad either. And it can be significantly cheaper than Acela, so if you're not tightly scheduled it can be very attractive.
Acela runs inside the Northeast Corridor, however, and for that market even the current version is pretty compelling. I take it periodically to travel between DC and NYC; it costs approximately the same as flying, but offers wide seats with built-in power sockets, lets you get up and stretch your legs if you want to, and doesn't require you to run the ridiculous security gauntlet that's mandatory at airports. Plus it drops you right in midtown Manhattan, so if you're there on business getting to where you probably want to go is easier and cheaper than it would be from an airport.
The main downsides are that it's a little slower than flying (though if you include time spent dealing with airport security the difference narrows), the trains are starting to show their age a little, and in NYC they drop you at Penn Station, which is a structure straight out of Dante's Inferno. New, faster trains would help ameliorate two of these three problems. (I'm not sure anything could be done to improve Penn Station, except maybe burning it to the ground and salting the earth it stood on.)