As I wrote before, public transportation is a human right. DB and SBB (and my native NMBS) have taken the decision just so.
But DB and SBB are also expensive compared to Poland. Look at the cost of a single ticket from Frankfurt (Oder) to Berlin - a 70km journey is about 10 euro. The same journey in Poland on the same class of train (Regio) is about 2.50 euro. Yet the costs aren't 4 times less - if anything, Przewozy Regionalne's costs are quite high.
If public transportation is a right, then you need to look at the amount of public money needed to bring them up to scratch. DB and SBB have spent a small fortune - and both of them have very, very high fares compared to Poland.
You could even look at NS - they aren't doing too well in general. I'd actually only rate SBB in Europe as being a quality operator - and this is all because the Swiss have absolutely poured money into their network. Yet - their trains aren't particularly fast either, but that's because the Swiss were pragmatic enough to choose reliability over speed.
Independent (meaning privately run, owned by greedy shareholders who have a chauffeur-driven Jag and should be sent to Saint-Helena) railways are a disaster.
I don't think they work at all - and this is part of the problem in Poland.
Look across the Channel to SNCF. See the difference?
But SNCF isn't perfect either - the TGV network is incredible, yes - but how much did this cost France? SNCF Proximités isn't exactly great either - the local train network in France is rather poor on the whole.
The problem in Poland is that the railways need massive, massive investment to bring them up to scratch. Look at the state of some lines - for example, Sanok-Kroscienko-Chyrow(UA) or Leszno-Glogow. In fact, on the first line - the line is actually in better condition between the PL/UA border and Chyrow than it is on the Polish side.
There really is no quick answer in Poland. Still, EIC is nice in general, and the night trains are of a generally decent standard (no complaints with Poznan-Przemysl or Wroclaw-L'viv). The TLK trains are also improving quite quickly - though they are hit or miss. I'm also told that the new "RegioEkpress" trains are quite good.