When I test drove the E46 and E90 models, the road feel was TOO good (if there is such a term), therefore the cars felt very harsh, even my Wife had commented of the ride.
"Road feel" and "ride quality"
are not the same thing. I believe captainaudio mentioned this earlier and was largely ignored.
A car with good
ride quality absorbs poor road surfaces--potholes, bumps,
etc.--without crashing, banging, jouncing and transmitting jolts to occupants' backsides. A car with poor ride quality is uncomfortable to drive for extended periods.
A car with good
road feel allows the driver to sense, through the steering wheel and the seat of his pants, how well the tires are gripping the road. It tells you whether they are near the limits of adhesion, how well they are keeping in contact with irregular pavement, their response to miniscule changes in steering input and so on. A car with poor road feel is uncomfortable to drive near the limits of traction.
Good road feel is not just a sporting feature but a
safety feature: In foul weather when the limits are lower, better road feel means greater confidence piloting the car on low-traction surfaces. You know sooner when you are headed for trouble and can react accordingly. Counter-intuitively, poor ride quality also hurts you here, because if you're getting knocked about over rough pavement, it's harder to control the car.
Ideally you want to maximize both attributes, which is contradictory--how can a car communicate every nuance of the tires' behavior
and isolate you from a rough road? It is difficult but not impossible. Balancing these opposites to provide excellence in
both has been a BMW hallmark for decades. It is, perhaps more than any other feature, a defining characteristic of class-leading sport sedans. When BMW screws up that balance, it gets noticed.
The E9X sport suspension botched the ride quality side of the equation (search "pothole explosions" here). Improvements were made toward the end of the production run, without sacrificing road feel. By all accounts (mine included) the F30 has superior ride quality to the E90--but there is mounting opinion that BMW went too far, achieving that at the expense of road feel, and needs to make some tweaks to restore the expected balance.
Edit: It seems the captain and I had the same thoughts at the same time.
He also pointed out very succinctly that steering feel and steering heft (weight/boost) are also separate traits, though often confused.