I owned a Nissan Altima once that had this feature and loved it there. The technology was simple - 7 segment display in the dash reflecting off the screen above

I owned a Nissan Altima once that had this feature and loved it there. The technology was simple - 7 segment display in the dash reflecting off the screen above. Now I'm driving a '11 550i that also has this feature - with the beautiful full color presentation. It's not distracting. If anything it makes me painfully aware when driving other cars that I'm constantly forced to move my gaze from traffic to check my speed. I do understand BMW's hesitation to load too much information into this display. Most car companies are notably horrible at user interface for the new technology they integrate into the car (BMW has a spotty track record here too with its early iDrive iterations). For example the new Lexus GS appears to persistently show radio station information in the HUD. This is not something that I need to see full time, only when I'm channel surfing. Jaguar does a nice job of showing relevant info at the right time in its non-HUD LCD instrument cluster, replacing the tach with other info at relevant moments. One thing I've really wanted is for a car's display stack to be built on a customizable platform, like Android or iOS, where third parties can integrate data. This way you can change the UI to suit your need, or integrate third party modules (like a radar detector). Definitely some care needs to be exercised here so as not to produce too much distraction, but I do think some of the features in new cars may have jumped this shark already (my 550 lets me do simple posts to Facebook from the dashboard screen - while driving!).