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Basically, it's a case where you can't reasonably expect to get the best of both worlds.
BMW's leases are the most competitive around (though Infiniti is quite close). The residuals on most BMWs are very high -- unrealistically high in most cases relative to real world resale values. For example, the 36 month residual on my wife's F30 is 64% and there are very few regular (i.e. non-exotic) luxury or sports cars that really hold about 2/3 of their value after 3 years. If I recall correctly, Audi offered a residual of 56% on a comparable A4 at the time we bought her car.
So if you lease a car and turn it in with no issues, you can get a great deal end to end. But the flip side is that the high residual makes a buyout feel like a ripoff. That said, it's not fair to expect BMW to eat it on both sides of the coin.
I've never heard of the idea suggested by the1andonly, but if your dealer is game for that and you really like your car, it's worth a shot.
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