Yes, actually the Takata airbag recall was the first one I heard about, not so long after I arrived in USA. It was so funny, because the day after I had to go to a management seminary in which our CEO had to give a lecture about "Lean methodology: The Toyota Model". The poor guy was so embarrassed...
I agree with you almost 100%, although my impression is that beside forums and direct communications, lately recalls are getting way more sensationalistic coverage from the media than the previous decade, for instance. They always manage to make things look like the world is going to end for everyone. Everything I've heard about recalls at least during the past two years (except our fuel pump thing) I got it from TV news. However, I just got curious and went to verify my subjective impression here:
https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2023-03/2022-Recalls-Annual-Report_030223-tag.pdf