I asked this of our local dealer a few months back. They started this family-owned dealership 30 or 50 years ago, it's expanded tremendously, and the son runs it now, with founder/Dad occasionally hanging around and schmoozing old customers.

So the Dad tells me that it's been pretty much all positive; Ford left the Volvo engineers mostly alone, but sent in their financial folks to straighten out the money side. He said what he sees is that it takes a lot less time to make decisions and get them into production than when the Swedes ran things.

I would have no qualms about the safety aspects of newer Volvos. It sounds like the Ford guys are learning from the Swedes on this score.
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Bob (son's 81-244GL B21F/M46, dtr's 83-244DL B23F/M46, 94-944 B230FD; grocery-getter Dodge minivan, hobbycar 77 MGB, and a few old motorcycles)