OP I think you've got your answer.
For what it's worth, I think they're both papers with failings (such as the ones mentioned many times here, page 3 in The Sun and sensationalist health and immigration reporting in The Mail). However, I also think they have many strengths too. The "patronising" "dumbed down" approach taken by The Sun is one - it is much more difficult to explain sometimes complex concepts in language understood by the majority, and I can't see why doing this is remotely patronising. The writing in both is often far superior to the news writing in the "quality" press - more concise and fewer literals. The subbing (headlines, layout, copy editing) is the best in Fleet Street.
I don't often agree with the politics in The Mail, but it's worth noting that they have taken brave moral stances - e.g. printing the front page accusing men of murdering Stephen Lawrence and challenging them to sue, and last year they were the paper at the forefront of investigating the tax cuts given to corporations.
Similarly, the idea that there's no news in The Sun is laughable. It has far more news pages than, say, The Guardian, and each page is crammed with far more stories. And that goes for hard news, not just celebrity twaddle, which even the holier-than-thou Independent runs.
Actually, I find the idea that people should just read the Guardian or the Independent and then they'd have the right idea of the world so much more patronising than anything The Sun or Mail allegedly does.
I also think it's unfair to judge a paper on articles it wrote 30 or more years ago.
(Disclaimer - I am a journalist, I've worked in local newspapers for the best part of a decade now, but I have never worked on The Sun, The Mail, or any national newspaper come to that.)