I have a 96 W210 E320 with 147,300 + miles on it.
This is my first MB after a BMW 5 series and a Lexus LS 400.
I Love this car. I have been lucky not to have the problems that you did. Maybe your car was a bad apple.

I was thinking about selling this car but I realized that there is nothing wrong with it. Mechanically it is sound. It's almost as good as when I bought it new and nothing out there is really worth me spending another $50K - $100K of my hard earned money. I do plan to drive it till it dies or until its not financially feasible. For every dollar I save driving this car, I will save it toward buying the new MB E320 CDI Diesel.

My BMW was a POS!
It had so many electrical problems, I had to sell it after only 25,000 miles. I bought it new and lost my a$$ on it.

My Lexus LS400 was a good car.
I did have a few problems with it at first but everything was taken care of by the service department through warranty. Even things that I was not aware of were replaced/repaired immediately. Only reason I got rid of it was because it was totalled in an accident.

Comparing my experiences with these 3 service departments, Lexus wins hands down. They are customer service oriented with the goal of making you happy. They always have a rental car available for free if you make an appointment in advance.
BMW and MB charged you if you wanted one.

Now my wife has a 98 Lexus ES300 and it is a smooth running car. It was bought new and has about 155,000 miles on it. It also runs very well.
I have logged every maintenance item for both cars and at the moment, the maintenance for the MB is about 2.5 times more than the Lexus. For people that are satisfied driving a dependable car (like my wife), its hard to justify spending more money on maintenance. If this is you, get the Lexus. It is a good dependable, trouble free car with an excellent service department.

Bottom line.
You really can't compare a MB to a Lexus but if you want reliability, dependability and low overall cost of maintenance, Lexus is the way to go.