The best blend of quality and convenience I've found so far is a french press. They're less fiddly and messy than an aeropress (I own one and never use it), cheaper than a drip machine, easy to clean, and produce good coffee. The only drawback is that you do need a decent grinder. A cheap spinning-blade grinder will produce a mix of large grounds and powder that will clog the mesh.
I have a French press, too. I like it, although I am not sure I would agree that it's less messy than an Aeropress, and I think it works best with darker roasts than lighter ones. But, none of the "good coffee gadgets" address the "I want something faster and more convenient than a Mr. Coffee" market that Keurig is going for. I'm not convinced you can get Keurig speed and convenience and get good coffee.
The way I see it, there are 2 factors that make it hard to get keurig speed + convenience and good coffee:
1) Since brew time is a function of temperature and ground size, K-pods can use hotter water and finely ground coffee to speed up extraction of the coffee grounds, even if it results in sub-optimal flavors.
2) K-Pods probably have a complicated supply chain that would make it hard to ship fresh roasted + ground coffee. I'm sure this could be circumvented somehow, but it would most likely require an expensive solution since it's so time sensitive.(ideally you have coffee ground just minutes before brewing, or at least less than a week before brewing.)
Honestly, instant coffee is probably the best solution for extreme convenience + great coffee. Folgers instant is awful, but companies like Sudden are trying to make a decent crystallized coffee: https://www.suddencoffee.com/
While it's been a really long time since I had a Keurig, I seem to remember that they used around 200°F water, and when I had one of the little "use your own grounds" containers for it, if I got the water-to-coffee ratio right it it was...decent. While it brews fast, it brews under just a little pressure, kind of like an Aeropress.
That was before Keurig had been bought by Green Mountain, though, and it seemed like they were trying to manage as good coffee as they could out of K-Cups. They were contracting mostly with specialty coffee roasters, and the K-Cups were filled with nitrogen to try and preserve the flavor. There were a couple I found that I did actually like, although I don't know if I would if I tried them again. :) My impression is that Keurig's quality control has gone down over the years, certainly with the machines, and one suspects the coffee.
I've heard of Sudden before -- positively, from people who really care about coffee -- but haven't tried them. I probably should. I've taken a few trips to places where the nearest good coffee was quite a distance away. :)
For some reason I've found that vacpots are easier to clean up than a press-pot, but they really complement each other: some coffees go to the press-pot, some are better with the vacpot.
