It sounds and looks as if the quality of these badges has slipped down hill.

I have had several of these badges beginning in about 1985 or so. Three of them are still on the grill of my 240D. All three of them are still in excellent shape and they have seen plenty of road debris. I have a 250,000 Km badge on my 300E that I got in about the year 2000 and that car is now about to get its half million kilometer badge so that badge has seen 250,000 Km of road use and it still looks excellent.

The one in the above picture just doesn't appear to be as nice as the old ones. I will see what a half million badge looks like soon. I expect it to be Gold in color but I would also expect it to be the same quality as the one shown above.