The Mercedes for the Elderly and Sensory Deprived

I have a 2006 E320, purchased new, having had three E class cars previously (the E350 came out shortly after, but my issues are the same, having driven both).

The Good
--great seats and seating position
--good "user interface" old fashioned, readable steam guages--no glowing blue and green a la Infinity--but too many swiches for other sytems
--great exterior design, fit, finish--still uniquely Mercedes

The Bad
--very, very poor reliability--12 trips to repair and still not right, not counting the *no longer free* maintenance
--handling: it's an unfortunate mating of Lincoln and Lexus. What happened to the Mercedes road feel? Well, it needs viagra. Handling is soft, with a feeling of being disconnected from the road the turn, road, and car. They must have put a lot of Chrysler engineers on this to so perfictly copy a sloppy American geriatics wagon.
--brakes. These are electrically actuated, and like the road feel, there isn't much--to the point that I believe it is dangerous to be so disconnected from the driving dynamics
--value for money. First of all, this car's resale value is already poor compared to many of its peers. Second, Mercedes has surpassed BMW as the king of nickel and 100 dollar billing you for an endless array of feature sets that should be in the base price of the car, including one for "leather" which on closer reading was for "leather inserts" = a little leather, a lot of leatherette.

Net: I can't wait to get rid of it. If you really want a Mercedes, wait three years: maybe the new guy running thngs can figure out how to show Mercedes how to make a Mercedes again.