In last 4 weeks I have had a 220D and a 250 for loan cars and although I realise I have not owned them so very limited mileage in them, I really thought that they were OK for what they are. The only real downside to me was that they both seemed very cramped and all round vision was poor(in comparison with the GS range) in my humble opinion. The windscreen is very small and the rear view mirror seems to take up so much of it.
Performance was good, even in the 220D although the D seem to hit peak revs too low down compared to max revs which I suppose one would get used to in time.