I agree with everything that you said, but it just seems sometimes that some technology is truly superfluous. For instance.....

Distronic. Is this really necessary? Are we now too lazy to speed up and slow down ourselves? Now we don't even have to pay attention to the road anymore! Not like this was happening in the first place with cell phones. How would you like to replace the control module brain for that in about 10-15 years?

Keyless Go. Purely there to impress your friends. First we got too lazy to turn a key, so all we have to do is push a button. Now we're too lazy to do that! And then ya had to reach alllll the way up there on the dash and turn that heeeaaavy key.....don't worry, all taken care of.

ABC. Do we really need fully electronic suspension? Yes, may give advantages, but was a well tuned "standard" suspension ever that bad? And again, you wanna replace one of those struts in a decade? People complain about their self-leveling, a dinosaur in comparision, giving them trouble in their 560s....you ain't seen nothin yet.

The new electro-hydraulic brakes. I haven't driven one, but every article I read about it says the same things. No feel, no feedback, feels like an on/off switch. Same thing, what's wrong with "normal" brakes, and go replace a control module and one of 100s of switches and sensors in a decade.

MB Command and BMW I-Drive. Give me a break, is this really necessary? I have no problem with turning an actual dial for my HVAC, stereo and so on. When a full seperate owner's manual or a computer science degree is required to operate one "feature"....too much.

These are just a few. Now, I realize that when these cars are new and a couple years down the road, these features may be just fine. Anything goes wrong, the warranty is right there. But just think, the same thing is going to happen to these cars as what is happening to 126s and 124s now. They are going to trickle down to people who love MBs but cannot afford a new one. And they will have no warranty. So in a decade or so you'll have people similar to many of the people in this forum looking at replacing an ABC strut with a 4 digit price that is giving them problems, or control modules for the brakes or whatnot. So MBs are even going to get out of reach for many people even when they have over 100K on the clock. I like technology(I'm 20 too) when it serves a real purpose (emissions for example), but when it's technology for the sake of technology or when it's a competition between the computer engineers of two car companies, it gets ridicuous.

__________________
'86 420SE Euro
904 Midnight Blue, Gray Velour
Dad bought it new, now I own it.

"A Mercedes-Benz is like a fine wine, it only gets better with age."