This may just be a case of bad reporting, but I see no connection other than coincidence on this one...
Gas prices fuel drop in car owner satisfaction
(my bold)
J.D.Power saw a 772 to 770 reduction in satisfaction (they claim a 1 point margin of error).
They also say that improvements are in areas where the car has been redesigned.

The only connection to gas is the fact that it went up in the same time frame and overall economy is unchanged.

Now; I can see people getting more miffed that their car is not getting the advertised economy than earlier studies because it is a bigger issue for people. This article says nothing about that, I can only base that on gut feel.

I also have a gut feel that maybe some of the makers are slacking on their satisfaction due to the tight economy.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Just call me outlier, I love my car, It gets 50+ MPG on the highway and 40+ in the city.
way better than the sticker in the window said when i purchased it.

But i would have to suggest that the window stickers on new cars that denote fuel usage is an understatement for the very reason you stated above. my wife just leased a new Tiguan by VW. the sticker said 18 city and 22 hwy. she has an average of 22 mpg over 1000 miles and that is mostly city driving so she actually feels like she is doing better than the sticker had advertised. but she is still waiting for the TDi to come out. That sticker says 40 city and 50 hwy and that is the one she will buy.

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Disclaimer: I have no theories, I am not smart enough to come up with theories. I only have a hypothesis. So anything I may write, statement or otherwise is just a hypothesis based on what I observe...

The difference between a correlation and a causation... Everyone who drinks water dies... Water makes things wet...