I don’t doubt the fundamental correctness of what you’re saying, but it seems like a hugely arbitrary way to describe the seating arrangement and it leaves out the most critical function of the seats. The BMW X5, the Volvo XC90, the Honda Pilot and others advertise 70/30 split/fold seats, but none has seatbacks that can be individually lowered like the early ML. I also don’t understand how, if a seat is defined by the seat frame and not the backrest, passenger cars advertise 60/40 split/folding seats even though both backrests are mounted to a single frame. Wouldn’t that be 100/0? Is there really no way to differentiate between the design of the seat frame and the backrest? I personally could care less how the bench works — I want to know if I can leave my kids’ two car seats in their outboard positions and still lower the center seatback to throw in some 2 x 4s. I’ve used that capability a million times over the years, but I’ve never needed to move one bench independently of the other.

In any event, I was more curious about the LATCH anchors. Did the addition of LATCH necessitate re-engineering the rear seats and cause MB to ditch the indescribable tri-folding seatbacks, or is it just a coincidence that they appeared at roughly the same time (MY 2000, I believe)? Is there really anything different about the seat frames that would prevent the installation of LATCH anchors? I’m just curious because I love the car and will probably keep it until the wheels fall off, but the lack of LATCH is an annoyance, and I’d like for my kids to be as safe as possible.