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The differences in the cars is the three companies reacting (or not, in Mercedes case) to potential buyers. BMW is going for a more mass appeal in an effort to increase sales. And it seems to be working. The first F30 I drove, I was like "wtf?" with the steering. Then I thought about it and the couple of non enthusiast drivers who've driven my e92 335 have bitched about how heavy the steering is, to the point of one of them insisting there was something wrong with it. I told him it was fine and he needed to spend more time in the gym. The point is that's the first impression the cars were making and BMW was probably losing sales to Infinity and Lexus because of it, so they softened the dynamics up a bit. Cadillac on the other hand, is making a concerted effort to go after the enthusiast segment and has made huge gains in the past few years, but is saddled with GM's powertrains ( which isn't all bad, corvette LT 1 motor anyone?) and that is what wrecks the driving experience in most of those cars. That and the not entirely thought out dash. A friend of mine's wife just bought an ATS and she explained the electronics this way " it sounded like a good idea, but it's like trying to use an iPad while driving" Mercedes, on the other hand seems stuck in some sort of funk that their attempts to change involves simply throwing a bigger motor in an existing car. Not a lot of innovation. If BMW can make the cars innocuous enough to take some market share from the competitors, but still be able to build cars with their traditional virtues and have the enthusiasts be able to option in the more hard core stuff it's a win-win.
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