Welcome to the forums! As pawoSD mentioned I too love the color combo!! I just ordered new Bilstein HD's for the fronts on my 300TD -- found an entire ring cracked off the drivers side spring and you could push in the shocks all the way -- wait 20 seconds -- and it would slowly come back out. It was bad but we knew it wasn't going to be good.
I digress, there is a plethora of information on these forums, and many many helpful people who have gotten me out of sticky situations in the past.
Now that I think about it, I test drove a 300SDL in Connecticut with high 2xx,xxx miles on it and it too was floaty; I was turned off by how much it tipped like a ship in the sea whenever you turned and the guy was pretty up to date with everything else but I bet his suspension could have used work it just didn't bother him. Recently, at Chad's BenzFest 2011, the winner of the high mileage award went to a 300SD or 300SDL in your same body style with over 400,000 miles on it.
Ironically enough I too started with VW's although unlike you I was never too handy with tools -- just enough to be dangerous. I have fantastic indie I work with in Randolf NJ who saw these cars roll off the lot working at a MB dealership for a few decades. I still arguably own a mint 1991 Jetta GLI shell, but that is at another friends shop awaiting an engine.
Back to work! TTYL