ImInPA

I do not know about the Gas E350 RWD models, but, my Luxury E350 Bluetec has speed sensitive steering and RWD. I personally found the steering in my Bluetec to feel nicely wighted and handling to be fairly neutral. When test driving, I found the steering in the E350 Bluetec Luxury to contribute to a more "massive" feeling than I experienced in either the RWD or 4Matic E350's I tried. I did not try an E550 so I cannot comment on that.

babyjocko

I've owned both, a 2005 E500 and 2010 E550. The W212 is better in every way except the interior's quality of material and list of options. Technology-wise, the W212 is better. However, overall, the car is cheaper due to the materials and stripped options.

K-A

I don't think pricing the car cheaper is as easy as determining whether it was due to materials, or whatever. For one, M-B said that after their quality debacles, they were going to lower the profit-margin on their cars (spend more on building them, and not boost prices to the public), and the HUGE cost savings came from sharing a platform with the C-Class essentially, just modifying it of course (like what BMW does with all their cars now). The cost savings on that are enormous over how they used to do it, i.e with the W211, which is build a chassis for each individual vehicle (although that way obviously gives the essence of an exclusive Luxury brand more-so, and of course sounds more romanticized).