Well, they DID sell an awful lot of them as FWD "Sports" cars. Back then, "Technology" and "Front wheel drive" were huge buzz words and made the Mustang and Camaro look like horse & buggy in comparison.
Mustang and Camaro were still running carburetors whilst the Daytona/Laser had Turbochargers and Throttle Body injection, and then later Multi Port Injection.

But I hear what you're saying. It would've been kind of neat had Mopar even dusted off the old 273 to offer a nice, small V8 with TBI or even the 3.9 V6 and offer RWD. I guess if we'd had known then that the trend was going to reverse itself. Don't forget that Ford came out with the Probe as a Mustang replacement and Camaro was going to be replaced by the Beretta. It was only at the 11th-hour that the decision to "keep the dinosaurs around" for a few more years was made.

But a Daytona with an all-aluminum small block with Multi-Port Injection and a 5 speed trans with RWD does sound mighty tasty....