Anyway, my criticism is mainly about degradation and cost cutting.
Which is fair enough, I think it's important not to blur the lines by lumping in gripes about innovation. Innovation and tradition often work against each other.
I'm mainly talking from my BMW enthusiast heart.
Again, fair enough, my BMW enthusiast heart loved my E24, E28s and E30, and those cars did not come with the kind of luxuries that you find yourself missing in modern BMWs. I love that fact my E90 is just old enough to miss iDrive and other tech that would date it ridiculously quickly. This is simply my opinion, but what appeals to your BMW enthusiast heart is different to mine - but I guess neither is right or wrong.
Let it be said: I have both i3S 120Ah and i4 M50 Individual, so i'm not an EV hater. But I have to honestly say that I had expected a bigger battery, longer range or something else new when the G6x arrived so many years after the i4.
So many years? The i5 is barely more than a couple of years newer than the i4, how radically different would you expect it to be? There was more of an age gap between my first E28 and my E24, but very little difference in the M30 engine... my other E28 had basically the same engine as the much later E30 (both M20's, different injection IIRC). Small generational progress is not a phenomenon of exclusive to new BMWs.
I can't speak for what Martin was getting at, but as the regulatory framework has tightened around the manufacturers necks, I think don't think it's right to ignore improvements in aspects such as safety, efficiency and performance simply because other things you'd like have gone. Like, to me I'm gutted that there's not a sub-1400kg 6MT High-Revving Non Turbo RWD saloon in the line up, and that's why I bought a car from when there was - but it doesn't mean everything since was no good - the G20 is still objectively better in almost every way than my E90, even if it has far fewer motorsport championships to it's name. To you, it's soft close doors... don't get me wrong, I loved the split tail-gate in my E34 and E46, it's just that kind of thing isn't a deal breaker for me.
