I have no real idea but my gut feeling is the MB engineers made it about as easy as possible to work on these vehicles. So my guess is that you are correct and that there is a fairly simple way to remove it - either in parts or all in one.

Have no idea about the current vehicles but in the 70-90 years I suspect they all were designed with the mechanic in mind. I have an '81 300SD and everything on it is a dream to repair; you can basically get to everything.