"new to me" 1993 190e 2.3 - idle and shift questions

[arkie]

I picked up a very clean 1993 190e last week to replace my '76 230 that died from rust (may it rest in pieces, err, I mean peace). 121K miles, serviced my MB in St. Louis until I got it, 2.3L with 4 speed auto. Everything works as it should (except the radio - that will be fixed with an aftermarked CD unit). Headgasket was done by MB at 109K (for $1,600 - ouch). The car drives great (especially compared to our clunky 98 ML320). The shifts seem somewhat hard after the car warms up, not terribly hard but definitely firmer that the ML. Whats odd is that it shifts better when pushed past 3000rpm than if I putz it around and let it shift at 2000rpm. The starting seems about 1/2 second slower than I think it should be, and the idle is a little sloppy (and around 750 rpm, seems a little faster than it should be). I haven't pulled the spark plugs yet - I'm sure a tune-up will help some. I did a search and also came up with checking the air boot between the Air Flow Meter and Fuel Distributor (its probably very similar to the one on the '82 Volvo with Bosch CIS that I used to have). Any other recommendations on things to check out? This is my daily driver car, I will travel 60 miles round trip daily to work. I'm looking for near absolute reliability out of this car.