Last year, we were looking at the smaller SUVs for my wife also, and eventually decided on Toyota's RAV-4 (nice little vehicle, not-so-great fuel economy -- around 20 MPG on a good day).
We checked out the Equinox, but never actually took one out for a test drive. One thing that really stuck out in my head was the cheap plastic interior. The center console was especially flimsy. Also, some genius designed the cup holder so that it was directly beneath the parking brake lever (i.e. the cupholder was useless).
...just my 1/50th of a buck...
