On first impressions, and after only a couple days of use, I am not overly impressed. If there are less fines in the Vario it is not to the extent that I can tell easily. I was hoping that the Vario would completely replace the need for the Perciso and I am not sure if this is the case. The W part of it does make the mornings a little easier but I am not a big fan of leaving beans in the hopper.
I think the largest drawback of the Vario is the grind range. After re-calberating it for coffee, I find my press pot on R10 and my our-over on A1. I am using the entire spectrum of my grind range just to cover pour-over to press. On the Perciso, I had almost 10 full adjustments on either side of my coffee spectrum (11 below pour-over and 8 above press.) If I do need a road mix for something like a long-soak, iced coffee I will have to either re-taskt he Persico or re-calabrate the Vario. This is the only major drawback with the Vario I see to date.
My initial impressions are that I would prefer my Persico as my coffee grinder. This might be a rushed decision as I have only been using it for two days and it could be just what I am use to. I will update my opinion after a couple weeks of use. If you are looking to buy a new coffee grinder, I would say it is not worth the added expense to go with the Vario/steel over the Perciso. In fact, the best bang for buck in the product line in my opinion would be the Virtuoso. I think I would be a little disappointed if I had spent the money to upgrade from the Perciso to the Vario.