IIRC the Salem is one of Forest River's lower end lines. We purchased a new Cherokee by Forest River back in 2004. The Cherokee, at that time, was pretty comparable to the Salem in that it was at the lower end of their design spectrum.
What I remember about our Cherokee (we sold it in 2010 to go bigger) was that it wasn't the fanciest of trailers, but it was solid in that regards and was THE most trouble free trailer I ever owned. That included the 1996 Dutchmen we had and the 2008 Jayco Eagle we currently have. Our Eagle has been a great trailer, but I can't recall one thing going wrong on the Cherokee (a faulty slide switch that went bad the day after we got it home notwithstanding) in the 6 years we owned it.
The Eagle has been VERY good, but not quite to that standard. lol