Thanks for the nice review!

MKZ is, indeed, probably a better comparison, as the Taurus is a significantly bigger car than the LaCrosse. The LaCrosse (and the new Regal, oddly) is built on the Epsilon II platform, which is an updated version of the platform that underpins the Malibu. Likewise, the MKZ shares a platform with the Fusion. The Lucerne would probably be a better comparison with the Taurus.

Really infuriating that they'd use a torsion trunk hinge on a car in this class -- a multilink would have probably given them a cubic foot or two of extra trunk space.

Out of curiosity -- what car class did they assign to the LaCrosse?