Yes, people in Germany love complaining about their trains. It makes sense, a decade ago they were way better. For everybody else that's experienced the train systems of other countries, it's still incredibly good.
I think the issue is that for a long long time we were a car nation wearing the coat of a train nation and while the stereotype (and expectation) solidified itself we privatized the railway system, converted many of the Western cities from public transportation focussed to car focussed (and back) and continued to make the car industry the bedrock of a few states' economies.