While, its nice that YOUR civic doesnt have rust on it, you cant put the civic above the protege for that reason, all too often the civics are rotted out more in the rear quarters than even your P5. My protege is still shiny and mostly rust free and its almost 12 years old and has 136k on the body. However, I am not going to bash civics either, my friends' civics are what got me into modding. I just happened to have bought a protege after my first two sentras. And, I am all to familiar with honda swaps from my friends accord. In the last 4 years he went F22B(stock) with I/H/E, H22A4 Stock motor with Skunk2 intake manifold TB and AEM intake and headers and made 191whp, then he started a K24/K20 frankenstein N/A Build that never finished, then F20B with all the same bolt-ons as the H22, another H22A4, and now a F22B with a 75shot lol, not to mention all the other hondas around i have helped with a turbo prelude, couple turbo civics, a couple riced out civics. They are good, but i still like my interior better, my handling, and aside from driver induced issues, my protege has never been unreliable.
To stay kinda on topic, here is a not so recent picture of said accord lol:
Well... I partially agree, and partially disagree.
Protege - Handled better, cost me less initially, looked better, broke more often with stock everything, but so much fun to drive.
Civic - handles like a Buick, cost more initially, owned it longer, drove it more, never broke except when it ingested water.
All in all, my Protege served a puprose in life, and then once the purpose was fulfilled, it died. It got me away from my demonic ex-fiance', allowed me to meet all my good friends, allowed me to get involved in one of the best online and offline car communities in the world. Now, it's a pile of rust, allowing the high-school daily driver to continue being the reliable car that's boring to drive, but will start everytime.
In the Protege's defense, I blame previous owner for a lot of what I had to deal with.