Not sure why you think diesels aren’t good for on-road use.
I suspect that is aimed at me - put it down to personal experience. I don't know what your experience with small (less than 2.5 litre) diesels is, but, I have yet to find one, be it turbo-charged or naturally aspirated that has a throttle response rivaling that of a gasoline engine. My 2.0 litre naturally aspirated Grand Vitara will out accelerate a 2.5 litre turbocharged Mitsubishi diesel pickup, and on a two lane blacktop, that's what matters - the power to overtake, safely...
Sure there are large numbers of diesels in Europe (by the way, I don't know your source of information, but I think your 90% estimate is more than a little over the top), but, you can put that down to the economy of a diesel vehicle combined with the high cost of fuel over there, sure the vehicles that "put the most miles on the road" are diesels, those are the delivery trucks where the focus is on fuel efficiency, not on performance - incidentally - have you ever got caught in traffic behind a big rig?
I have personally put thousands of miles on the road behind the wheel of diesel vehicles, and as I have mentioned previously, those miles were done in vehicles with factory fitted and presumably optimally geared diesels, not diesels retrofitted into gasoline vehicles - I like a vehicle that accelerates WHEN I step on the throttle, diesels don't.