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In spite of having multiple authentic Mexican joints with drive thrus, we also have not only Taco Bel but also Taco Time and Del Taco. 

Dubbed the "Marathon Man," Belgian runner Stefaan Engels ran the marathon distance every day for a year, totaling 9,569 miles (1,5401 km)

I took the dog on a walk yesterday to the post office and back... weather was very nice

30-minute journey - I suppose I could walk at a bit of a pace for 30 minutes if pushed

Yeah, I can see that, I might try it again sometime just to see, and I'm glad to hear "it wasn't terrible".  That's fairly high praise for fast food.

I still have a notion TB is the worst of the bunch, maybe I'm wrong.

Down south we have a lot of chicken joints like Popeye's and Zaxby's and Bojangles as well as CFA.

10 major fried chicken chains in the US, ranked by popularity - KTVZ

Well, one answer is that McD's and BK and Wendy's and all the other fast food burger places are in direct competition for burgers.

Taco Bell is by far the biggest and most well known fast food Mexican joint. If I want a burger, I've got lots of options. If I'm not in the mood for a burger, and I want a taco, the options get slim really quickly. Even out here in CA where there's enough of a market to support a competitor (Del Taco), that's still only two major chains. Burgers we've got all of the above, including In n Out, Carl's Jr, Jack in the Box, and probably two or three that I'm missing. But I think Taco Bell and Del Taco are the only major taco-specific chains.

Similar with KFC. They're the biggest and most well know fried chicken joint. I mean, you have the rise of Chick-fil-A (pretty much only sandwiches) and Raising Cane's (pretty much only chicken fingers), but if you're just looking for classic fried chicken, the options get slim really quickly. I know this is different in the South, and you've got a lot more variety for fried chicken, but there's not all that much here out West.

So these niche genre restaurants may succeed partially because they're carving out and dominating the niche, instead of just trying to be yet another fast food burger joint.

As for Taco Bell? Yeah, it's pretty mediocre. But I also can't remember a time in my life that I've gotten a Crunchy Taco Supreme and it's EVER been worse than the normal level of mediocre. Much like McDonald's, you can trust TB to be consistent. That said, I don't really eat there except like you when I have literally no other options.

I wonder how much fast casual is eating into their market.

My own fast food ranking, e.g., if I have a choice, I use this ranking.

1.  CFA
2.  Burger King
3.  Wendy's
4.  Bojangles
5.  Zaxby's
6.  McDs
7.  TB maybe, it's really at the bottom.

We almost never dine at any of them unless traveling.  I like McDs OK for breakfast.

To an extent, you've proven my point. You've lumped 7 highly disparate chains with wildly different menus into a single ranking. 

• If you want a chicken sandwich, you're in luck. You can get that at 6 out of the 7 chains. 
• If you want a burger, well, you've just cut it [more than] in half. You can only get a burger at 3 out of the 7 chains. 
• If you want chicken fingers, it looks like the two that would be the highlight there are Bojangles and Zaxby's. 
• If you want traditional fried chicken (i.e. dark meat), it seems the only option is Bojangles. 
• If you want a taco, you've only got one place on the list to get it. 

If I really wanted to psychoanalyze you, CD, what I'd suggest is that maybe you're just really not into Mexican food. From your own descriptions of your upbringing, it doesn't seem like your parents really branched much out of traditional American / southern food--i.e. didn't you say you never even had pizza until college? Did you ever really eat any Mexican food growing up?

So I might posit that TB is at the bottom of your list not because TB is terrible (although, admittedly it's not great), but because there will just be about 1 in 200 times in your life when you're in the market for fast food that you want a taco more than you want a burger or some variant of fried chicken. 

Whereas for people who grew up in Southern California, of basically any race, every once in a while there's just a taco craving, and a burger just ain't a taco. Obviously I didn't grow up in SoCal, but the variety of cuisine available in Chicago in the 80s and through the 90s was probably wider than that of Georgia in your childhood/teens, and on top of that my parents actually encouraged variety of cuisine. So I grew up eating Taco Bell. 

I personally don't eat Taco Bell because we eat a lot of tacos at home. We do Taco Tuesday basically every week. When it's just my wife and I, it's often fish tacos, sheet pan shrimp fajitas, etc. But when we have the kids, we frequently make just the traditional ground beef crunchy tacos. So I get my taco fix. There are times where I want a damn good carne asada burrito, and there's one joint around that I'd rather drive the 5 miles to get their carne asada burrito than go to the Taco Bell that's literally walking distance from my house. Taco Bell steak burritos just don't hold a candle to Sabrosada.