Roof crush standards that came into effect in Sept 2012 are the motivation behind the increasing sizes of vehicle A pillars The pedestrian safety standards that came into effect a few years back are the reason why hoodlines are so tall and vehicle front ends are so bluntly shaped.
The need to stiffen A-pillars to resist passenger compartment deformation in an offset-frontal impact has a pretty significant effect on the design of the A-pillars, too. The need to stiffen B-pillars for side impact affects those, too. And then there's all the side-curtain airbags to provide space for.
Compare, for example, frontal impact videos for the 1997-2003 Ford F150 (not designed for offset frontal impact):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i5EmJBaGeQ
Then there's the 2008 model in the same test:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LkAzt_0qIg
Note that for the 2008 model, the windshield doesn't even break, and I betcha you can still open the driver's door after the crash. The two-generations-before model, probably not ... But doing this requires the A-pillar to be extremely stiff, and that means the underlying structure has to be thicker (or made of stronger materials - or both).
So why is Corvette, as an example, allowed to drive on our roads?
The pedestrian impact standards first showed up in Europe. To my knowledge, North America has not adopted anything similar, but given that a good many vehicles are designed for worldwide sale, it affects us here, because many of the design features that are required to pass the pedestrian-safety requirements have to be built into the fundamental structure of the vehicle. (The hood has to be designed to deform and absorb energy in a certain way, there has to be a certain minimum clearance below the hood to the "hard" parts of the engine, etc.) The requirement to have clearance below the hood to "hard" parts tends to raise the hood line, which raises the base of the windshield, which contributes to the high beltline and the feeling of sitting in a bunker.
Now, as for that Corvette. Many of the European regulations, and I think this one is included, apply to any "new vehicle design introduced into commerce". In other words, the manufacturers can still keep selling the old (non-complying) design until they come up with a new one, and the new one is required to comply. Corvette C6 was introduced in 2005 and it may have pre-dated the Euro pedestrian safety regs. The next one will have to comply, if they want to sell it over there ...
There are other ways of achieving the hood clearance requirement. I know there is some car out there (Jaguar?) that uses some sort of quick-acting actuator (like an airbag) to raise the hood if it detects a pedestrian hit. Expensive to do it that way ...
My own daily driver is a VW Jetta Mk5, which is well regarded for being a safe vehicle, but the base of the windshield is pretty high, and the B-pillar is pretty thick. Rear visibility is terrible. That doesn't have much to do with crash safety, but rather the desire to have a big trunk (which it does) and good aerodynamics (which it does). My dad has a Golf, which has pretty similar structure, but at least you can see out the back.
Sometimes it's just dumb design decisions. I've been in cars where the inside rear-view mirror is at my eye level ... creating an enormous blind spot looking forward. The current Subaru Impreza is one such example. Why not just move the rear-view mirror up a bit? No reason it couldn't be just below the top of the windshield.
