Modern vehicles are all becoming what BMW was first, more complicated. Modern BMWs are more reliable, the E46 and older were fun cars and cheaper to fix, but they would nickle and dime you with all the plastic cooling bits. Granted, you can redo an entire E46 cooling system for $200, and I've done it on several of them. The big difference in my mind is that new BMWs aren't worth the price they command because they don't offer anything different. They are more vanilla, not inspiring to drive, and the styling is hideous. I love my E90, I have enjoyed some of the F30s I've driven, along with the excellent driver's cars like the E46 ZHP, E39, E36, and E30, but the new ones are missing that character. Yeah, they are fast, but how much HP can you really use on the street before you just end up in jail?
To answer the question of "what are they smoking?": They have been too focused on becoming what they think "everyone" wants that they have forgotten what their actual customers want (some of them returning for decades) and that can be a disaster for a brand.