But not for me... Would rather fly BryanAir* than voluntarily own another VAG product.
Yet you happily own non classic MB products
One man's poison is another man's desire. For example, all the BL/AR/Rover cars I've had have been excellent, reliable little workhorses despite the reputation. I'd own another if they still existed.
Yes Mercedes remind me of the Lada Rivas my aunt had in the eighties, just made a little better. I'd have a Renault before a Merc.
Speaking as someone who replaced a Merc with a Renault - are you fickin mental ? 
Ah, but your Merc was one of the last MB vintage before they got shot of the designers.
Bro, shortly after MB decided that actually putting effort into designing cars was too much work, was working for a 3rd party company that AMG used to try to make a standard Merc basically work as a tool (ie, be able to stop, or deal with a bend), so we got lots of drives in soon to be released AMG variants of standard cars, in various states of AMG-ness (back when AMG was more than a badge and a set of alloys), which was a hoot. But the complete lack of any care in how the cars were constructed or components used was obvious, even to the stupid kid from the local comp... ...who drove MkII Astras and Rovers at the time

Bro's job was quite easy when it came to shit like suspension and brakes, because all AMG wanted to know is which part numbers from the Bilstein catalogue should they be buying, because they were unable to do the maths themselves. Although nothing was ever going to overcome the chassis deficiencies, which is why any powerful merc is impossible to drive quickly.