I assure you that I have put in plenty of hours under a good number of vehicles.

It's better to be safe than sorry. On the earlier MBZ vehicles, the diff hsg is a cast iron structure. When I saw that this one was an aluminum casting, I wasn't sure if it was intended to support the more than 2000 lbs require to lift that thing up in the back. The manual does not help in this either as it cites liftling the vehicle on a lift using the support pads.

When the vehicle in on the wheels, the sprung weight is not supported by the differential, but by the force of the springs on the subframe.

On this basis, I did not think my question was silly or stupid.