IND you're doing a great job in trying different things to get the grill to look great. Painting the middle to be body-colored along with it being solid along with the lower part being black will go a long way to improve the design.
I think the coffin-style, horizontal lines at the top are still too in your face for you to cut it off, so it'll look somewhat strange to have a half-open shape that looks unfinished. Ideally, you'd want to have the vertical lines like current and previous BMWs, like this quick photoshop I threw together.
