We had a well liked Western Star dealer here in fairbanks, the owner was a haul road driver and continued to drive, even though he owned the dealership. That coupled with the fact that you could get a star with a 600 cat a year or 2 before you could in a KW or pete, he sold lots of trucks. These were mostly all heavy spec, 300 wheelbase trucks with rough duty running the haul road, an excellent test to see just how tuff a rig is built. The cabs are nice and BIG, great if you like driving a house down the road. lol They had neway suspension and rode great, at least all of them I drove did. Those big cabs are nice, but they are not in the same league as a paccar built cab, or even with the older small cab stars.
I did like the round crossmembers on them stars, much easier to wash the haul road mud off of.
I should note, we have again had a dealer the last couple of years, and a few owner op's have bought them, mainly because you can't get a cat in a pete or KW any more, and the cummins have been a lot of trouble, heck we even have a freightliner dealer now and they are selling a few to owner ops, actually more than the stars for some reason.
In a few years we will see how the new stars hold up compared with the new paccar trucks, I have a feeling that there will not be as much of a difference as there was a few years ago.