I've driven one for over 100,000 miles and it doesn't bother me at all. In fact it blocks the lights from tailgaters so I'd put it as a plus rather than a minus. The lower portion lets you see objects closer than to the rear than many sedans.
As far as visibility is concerned, the Prius is no worse than any other hatchback and even some sedans. However, there is an optical illusion in the Prius that makes the back window appear to have less visibility than it actually does. I used traffic cones to measure this on my 2004 Prius and a couple of other cars and found that the Prius has more rear visibility than the newbeetle or the sedan type (2001-2003) Prius.
Note that cars with side curtain airbags have thicker front pillars than those that don't. These take some time to get used to, but it's not a "Prius" phenomena.
Unfortunately, Consumer Reports is not a particularly good source of information as they seem to consistently either get it wrong or miss the point on almost everything they've reviewed that I have some knowledge about or have researched. You have to take CR reports with a very large grain of salt and do additional research.
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