I understand what you are saying and agree that the absence of some of the features is the reason many other vehicles are much cheaper... however I respectfully disagree with the thought process that there is no way forward for BMW in the area of cheaper safe weight reduction.

All modern vehicles have to meet a minium saftey standard to be driven on the road (at least in the US) and my old 80's 3 series would meet those current standards quite well.

How do I know this?
My vehicle met an untimly demise due to the ineptitude of a Diplomat (I will not name the country of origin for fear of Godzilla tearing down my house) in a Ford Taurus Wagon back in the early 90's. It was at this point I found out that BMW had built crumple zones into its vehicles alredy. And this was in a 1980's BMW 3 series.

While I'm not foolish enough to believe that you could get rid of traction control and ABS in modern vehicles, you could however make them options. We do it today in numerous brands.

And here is where we get to the heart of what BMW does best...make everything an option.

If you want all the bells and whistles in your vehicle as well as the performance numbers...well you might have to ship out more money and bump up to the larger engine.

...But if you dont want a small buttler in the armrest reading you the Wallstreet Journal while going 'round the ring' well the 4 cyl might provide a ton of Power to Weight potentional...without the sacrifice of safety.