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Another thing to consider is that I'm driving a 128i, which I believe may have a considerably lighter front end.
At the track a few weeks ago, my instructor was a PCA guy who regularly tracks his Cayman. He also tracks his wife's stock 135i, which he had with him that day (she was his other student). Given his experience with those two chassis, I imagine he knows a thing or two about the differences between oversteer and understeer.
Anyway, after a day in both cars (as driver and passenger of each), he told me that he believed my car was much more balanced than his wife's. Now, there were numerous differences between the two cars (weight, mods, etc.) and it could be that he would've liked it even better with the stock bar. My point is only that, in that configuration (I have since swapped coil-overs) he didn't seem to think that it inherently understeered.
I'll also say that the stiffer front bar, since it's keeping the front flatter, makes it seem easier to point the car towards where you want to exit. Of course, that doesn't always translate to forward motion, I suppose.
Finally, I think the bar in the absence of other suspension tuning is probably a net negative. I remember doing the bar early on, because it was cheap and easy to DIY. I naively thought that it would sate my appetite for further modding, but if anything, it lead me to fit coil-overs even earlier than I had planned. It sort of brought out the weakness of the stock suspension, in the same way that my coil-overs have highlighted the wobbly rear subframe bushings. It's a slippery slope, this car - BMW had it tuned for RFT's and soft bushings, and once you go poking around trying to "improve" things you find that it takes quite a bit more to really get the job "done." I'm still not there yet.
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