Being 18, I presume you're not married and don't have kids. You may love a crisp handling machine with tight suspension and a slick transmission which is jerky when driven slow, but your passengers may not (adults or kids). Is that so hard to understand? It think Car magazine made a comment once that the softest suspension setting on the M5 is already tighter than the tightest suspension setting on the CLS55 when they did a comparison. Anyways, the M5 suspension isn't drawing complaints, it's the SMGIII transmission which causes the most complaints from some M5 owners.

I'm not the one complaining. I'm just saying there are a number of M5board members who dislike the M5 as a daily driver traveling at slow speeds or in traffic. Your last point illustrates this perfectly.....the M5 may be the ultimate driving machine, but it probably is not the best 4 door to carry passengers around in, or even a daily driver for one person if you're stuck in traffic a lot in a city. There is nothing wrong with this.....just different priorities.....some like it, some don't.

Any car will seem comfortable when travelling on a nicely paved open road or highway. Again, the M5 owners rarely complain about the ride. It's mostly the SMGIII and high fuel consumption that draws the most criticism.

Your opinion is that people who complain about the M5's ride should get a Merc because "that's what they're meant for". Why a Merc? Why not a big Lincoln or Cadillac?

Members on m5board arent complaining on uncomfortable seats or stiff suspension. Like PC said, the two main complaints are SMG in automatic mode and fuel consumption.

The seats in M5/M6 is out of this world, very comfortable (which carmags also pointing out), in fact they are just as good as the ones in E55. The difference between M5 and E55 is the suspension. The suspension in M5 E60 is not like M3, M5 E39, RS4 or various Porsches but harder than E55.
The suspension works good for daily-use and transporting 3 or 4 people work as well, much better than the cars I listed above. Put the car on Autobahn and you have great transport-car.
Again, its the SMG that is the mainconcern. Some like it , some dont. Luckily BMW are listen to their customers, both manual tranny and SMG will be offered for the M5.

We also know for a fact that BMW are working on gearbox similar to DSG (which is better for daily-use than SMG), if DSG will replace SMG in the future, that remain to be seen.

What Andreas said^^ I just dont see the big deal. SMG is smooth if you know how to work it. Just like a manual transmission the smoothest shifts can be made in the fastest mode if you lift the throttle as you shift into the next gear, which is intuitive. Why a merc? Because Mercedes are the best next option to a performance sedan thats only a bit more compromised than the M5.