[jwzimm]

As an engineer and a 335i owner I am going to disagree with this a little. You can have just as much power on tap and ready if you simply adjust how you drive the car. Yes, if you try and floor it at 40mph in 6th gear you are going to face turbo lag, it is simple physics. You can avoid this, however, by putting the car in 3rd gear before you need to accelerate. It requires more forethought and preparation but it is not the end of the world. Add to this that BMW has done some great things to reduce the effect of turbo spool (small twins, twin-scrolls) and you can see how it is possible to have the best of both worlds. Hell, look at what Porsche is doing with their turbos. Variable vane turbines can offer NA like response but turbocharged output.

Also, I would challenge the assertion that these cars are driven hard all the time. I would love to see some statistics on how often the cars are in boost vs how often they are not. If the car was only on the track then emissions would not matter. These cars are meant to be driven on the roads where you can't be at 100% output much of the time. Pissing and moaning about how it could be that little bit quicker responding when you would only use that ability .001% of the time is so silly IMHO.