Actually roads are pretty clear now. We had a good rain last weekend, hasn't snowed since. Good eye! Alfa is a more modern car - power steering for one. They're nice, solid cars and extremely reliable by Italian standards
Pretty sure they shared the Saab 9000 platform so if you've driven one of those you have an idea. There's a 164S in the garage... much sportier than the standard model and beautiful engine sound.
As for reliability, just my personal experience but in the last 4 years as a weekend driver it hasn't let me down once. Total parts/repair cost since I've owned it (maybe 6 years) has been under 2K, bunch of deferred maintenance. Here's a pic of the car in the city I took last weekend while my 911 is sitting in the garage waiting on an engine rebuild. That's minimum 3K in 9 months ownership...
To be fair the 911 has 100K. Not sure anyone's taken a Maserati that far (rust likely being the limiting factor.) The engines are pretty indestructible though. It's hard to say what tends to fail since probably 90% of the issues are due to lack of maintenance and kludge fixes, owners who get in cheap and stay cheap. Interior vinyl deteriorates, turbos go, rust is a biggie. Even mine as a few small spots but I'm pretty strict about keeping it dry so no progression.
EDIT: I decided to leave the Maserati for the 911 because the more I worked on the thing myself the more I disliked it. Italian engineering, lots of "80% there is good enough" I remember changing out the clutch master cylinder -- disconnecting the thing took 10 minutes, routing it through the maze of hard brake lines in the engine bay (and the new one back in) took an hour -- way to think that one through guys! A more experienced DIY-er might be less frustrated but being I'm new to this and there's no Bentley or Pelican it wasn't always pleasant.