Since I am the only one who criticized the magazine, I'll respond.
I bash the magazine for two reasons. First, because my eyes have been opened over the last number of years to the increasing "game" that the manufacturers play with these magazine writers. The game has gotten so bad that most of these magazines are not truly just mouthpieces for the manufacturers, with very little objectivity.
Second, Car and Driver used to be my favorite magazine. I've been subscribing since the late 80's, and fondly remember Ceppos, Bedard, Yates, Winfield, Csere and many others writing well written, thorough and good prose about vehicles and their characteristics. However, in my opinion, that's all gone by the wayside in the last 5 years. Those writers and columnists are gone, and Csere is no longer the editor. The quality of writing has turned to garbage. It's filled with toilet humor, stupid stories, etc. It's like they're trying to be the Top Gear of print magazines. Well, even Top Gear's own magazine realizes their form of humor doesn't translate to print and doesn't write that way in their magazines.
They also tend to write very inconsistently. Notice how they rail the BMW for having up and down suspension motions and keeping secrets, however they still have essentially the same criticisms about the Audi? Flabby on turn in, slow to react? How is that any different? And the shifter and iDrive. Really? Could we stop railing on this already? It's not all that hard to work the freaking shifter in these cars. And after years of complaining about iDrive and the constant need to use it, C&D gets a long term F10 from BMW the way they like it....bare bones with manual transmission and with all the sport goodies, and C&D complains it's not luxurious enough for the price. Give me a break.
I don't think the M5 is the end all, be all. I'm not super enthralled with my own F10. I'd like to take the best bits of it and the best bits of the Audi and put them in a blender and emerge with my perfect car. Other magazines have shown a preference for the Audi over the BMW and I'm fine with that. But Car and Driver has gotten to a point where I cannot stand their writing or put stock in anything they say.