Good news and bad news
O.K.
After playing with the nav system for a day, I can now say that I am both impressed and not impressed. It would be nice if there was a feeback system for them to work out the bugs in this beta level software they've put into our cars.
The bad:
after spending a couple of hours creating an "Alpenstrasse" route, that I cannot save and work on again, the import of it went fine, but it would not start the guidance. I spent 30 minutes messing with the system, gave up, started driving, stopped driving in some Germany family farm, then had to suffer through the laughter that ensued when I finally got across to them that I wanted to drive from Berchtesgaden to Fussen on the Alpenstrasse. I believe what she said to me was basically (in a nice way) "that is crazy. Drive to Munich and then back to Fussen and enjoy your day" ... she's obviously never driven an M3
So, when she told me for the 3rd time that the road in front of her house was the Alpenstrasse and I just needed to get on it and start driving, we did.
Sometime after that, guidance started.
The root of the problem is thus:
the start point for my guidance was the hotel we stayed at. However, we woke up and decided to visit the Obersalzburg Documentation museum (very excellent ... all in German with the walkie-talkies). I started guidance from the Museum several miles off route. We need the system to understand that it should at least route to the beginning of the route from wherever we are. It did not. It, in fact, did nothing, leaving me to believe that the route import did not work.
After this, the very complicated route guidance was excellent. Except, the route waypoints I added to force the system to route along the Alpenstrasse were mostly in parking lots or alleys which led to a lot of "you have reached your destination" followed by "please U-turn if possible" ... tad bit annoying. I learned quickly to navigate to "set guidance to next destination point" prior to arriving at the current one for these non-stop waypoints. All-in-all the nav system saved us way more time that it cost us. And it ended up giving us a triple tour of Tegernsee! Nice place, if not a bit crowded.
I was also able to confirm that it will only import ONE trip from a USB stick. However, I had two USB sticks, so I got two trips loaded. For a many day trip ... either one mega trip, or a series of USB stick, or a computer/USB stick juggle is required to get it all loaded at once.
I'd give it a solid B- for the implementation and effort.
Now, if only BMW would hire me and move me to Munich ... I could fix up their software, and I might be in my version of heaven
Time to go write my 12 hour nearly 24 hours too late.