I can't agree more, I was honestly disgusted by the direction BMW took afterwards with Bangle's stuff. I can appreciate a nice E46 M3 but would never own one, as it's a huge money pit, relatively speaking.
With that said, the E36 and prior generations are great. They really are driver's cars, and feel fantastic on the open road. BMW had the feel of every switch, button, latch and steering wheel down perfectly. It does seem like every single one develops electrical glitches, especially in the window switches, and the cooling systems always seemed to be lacking especially on the E36 and later cars. A friend of mine has an E36 M3 and another recently sold his E30 M3. What a car! Beautiful, nimble, and very advanced for it's time.
I was recently shopping for a new-to-me car and had it down to two, the E36 M Coupe or Honda S2000. The M Coupe is gorgeous (in my eyes), torquey and handles great, but I ultimately went with the S2000 mainly because of reliability/maintenance concerns. I have enough Z-cars to mess around with, I don't need my DD breaking down or needing excessive/expensive maintenance!
I feel that the S2000 is similar to the 240Z, lightweight, bulletproof drivetrain, long hood and seating position by the rear axle. Sorry for that tangent but I'm betting that quite a few Z owners have/had an S2000 as well!