[RugbyBro]

Feel is literally the difference between a DCT and ZF8 in most to all contexts - you either like that feel or you don’t. ZF8 can shift almost as fast, the pure speed difference is imperceptible by most and would certainly be considered DCT fast by the standards of other DCTs or those of the recent past. The lack of feel has to do with clutch engagement and ZF8 cannot engage the clutches as hard as a DCT. AFAIK the TC is locked soon after launch so there is no TC involvement during the shift (at least in a performance context), so it comes down to the the clutches. DCT clutches can handle more abuse than planetary clutches so they can shift harder and faster, and don’t require momentarily reduced power between shifts... hence more immediacy and feel. I do agree with the sentiment that BMW seems to program their DCT to give a synthetically theatrical shift in S3, as anecdotally confirmed by a GTS DCT flash (still very hard and absolutely immediate, but a little less chiropractic than stock DCT). And not all shifts are neck snapping as the TCU will sense the directional load of the car and execute a butter smooth shift under any lateral load to avoid unsettling the car. Regardless, shifting in any situation is just more immediate with DCT than any ZF8 I’ve driven. However, I also agree that ZF8 is more than adequate for most people, and those who have not driven a good DCT are unlikely to know or care for the difference - and even having driven a good DCT, its merits may not be worth its idiosyncrasies depending on how the car will be used.

FWIW I really like ZF8 for most cars, it’s a fantastic transmission so y’all won’t be disappointed with it if you can appreciate it for what it is, which is a true auto that has DCT-esque speed without DCT quirks - really hard to do better than that. I think the disappointment for some reviewers, on the fence owners, and some likely owners will stem more from the fact that G8X shares a transmission with the more pedestrian BMWs, is the result of a painfully obvious cost cutting exercise by BMW, and doesn’t quite feel like a transmission that the S58 probably deserves - a rather speculative example of which is based on the S58 technical doc, it can spin to 7600 but seems to be capped at 7200 due to ZF8s limitations.

Edit: to clarify my first sentence a little, I should say “most to all typical contexts”. The immediacy of DCT and related benefits should be pretty self explanatory in a performance context, whether a normal owner is able to reap that reward tangibly probably depends on their abilities