I’m with you there. I can’t look through a current Lionel catalog without thinking of that. When my brother and I were kids, my dad got back into O-gauge trains, and purposefully bought ONLY Lionel because it was American made.
But regarding MPC, my first train purchase was a very-well-worn MPC Wabash 2-4-2 and caboose, bought at a meet for $25, not an insignificant sum for an 11 year old kid! I was a little disappointed to find that it had no neutral, but it had smoke and sometimes even the the sound of steam 
I did nothing to lube or maintain that engine, but it never complained. It’s since become a “parts engine”, but I still have the motor and it still runs just fine.
Another good thing about MPC is the variety of rolling stock available for dirt-cheap. Since I work weekends, I end up doing most of my shopping on ebay. Not too long ago, I got a B&O Sentinel boxcar from 1980, basically a 6464 reissue, MINT, for $12.50. I got the standard-O version of the same car (class of '73, kinda dirty) for a buck less than that. Compare that to new stuff. Compare that to postwar stuff!