My personal thoughts:
MTH is asking a lot of money for something that in my book is pretty far off the mark, but it's still cheaper than what Lionel will charge, so if you're not obsessed with prototypical accuracy and want the train, go ahead and buy the MTH version.
As far as the idea of a funeral train being weird or morbid, I personally see it as a way to pay respects to a leader of our country. I'm not going to get political and understand people have widely varying opinions of 41, but my grandfather met him through his career and I've seen him and Barbara before so there's a personal tie for me.
Lastly, I've always wanted some nice UP excursion cars and these are the same cars they use on public trips and business trains, so they are multipurpose for me. 4141 will be used in freight service on my layout and the cars will be used in excursion service. Not just a funeral train.
