What's in a name? Why modern car model designations piss me off

I love old Mercs, owned a couple in my time, romanced by their German-ness (I’m of German heritage), reliability and build quality. I’ve owned a W123 generation 230 and a W123 gen 280CE. More recently, as in last week, I bought a W210 generation E320 (and yes, there will be Project Car updates soon).