dave docwra:
The reason I think we differ on the F7 is because I am comparing it to some of the older fleet vehicles used in the late seventies i.e Seddon, A series ERF & the such like fleet vehicles, which were all good in their day, But Volvo & Scania were pushing better fleet vehicles into companies at this time, you seem to be comparing the F7 to vehicles mainly from the 80s.
Ironically in my case it was actually more the ( luckily temporary ) retrograde move from driving an end of life late 1970’s 2800 in the mid 1980’s to a much newer early 1980’s F7.As I said it was one of the few vehicles which I disliked even more than the similar early 1980’s DAF 2500’s we had and a world away from the later 2300 ATI.Which was a brilliant improvement over the 2500 being geared to perfection with a 16 speed box together with seemingly much better torque characteristics although admittedly probably often running at a bit lighter gross weights than the artics.Realistically any of the small capacity highly stressed offerings in the day were way out of their league in anything much more than a 24 tonner.On that note I’d guess the comparison I’m making is anything with 10 litres + turbocharged v less than 10 litres + turbo.Probably because sufficient gearing for sustained decent motorway speeds together with the low torque high revving engine formula predictably seemed to contradict each other.
Although the hopeless gutless V6 in the Merc 2534 seemed to be the exception that proved the rule in being the worst of all worlds in that regard. 
