I had both. Grip on new LC is better. Slide cuts nice. New coating sucks. If you want I can show you pictures of wear after roughly 12.000 rounds... I don't care that much btw. It's a tool.
From price point of view older model wins.
New model in blue is a smurf gun (you have to be Italian to appreciate) but who cares... Black is nice though!
I like the platform even though QC sucks. I have a RHT holster and my gun doesn't fit well, whilst my buddy's gun (serial number 1 higher) fits perfectly.... Can you imagine?
Nevertheless, buy with confidence but do see a gunsmith to make trigger right. I have one with 1,3 kilo trigger pull and one tuned bu Sebastien (Eric Grauffel's gun smith) with under 900 grams and amazing...