As an owner of both a M5 and a M3 ZCP, I couldn't resist...
The M3 doesn't have the grunt, but it is sure no slouch either! Very, very rarely have I really missed the torque in the M5, but this is largely because I haven't been able to really drive either car except in bumper to bumper traffic for several weeks now. Today in the rain, I would have loved to be able to lug the M5 through traffic, because the M3 is pretty flat below 2k.
Mr. Drifter is dead on.. these things love to be hammered, and hammered hard. I have been playing with fuel consumption for the last couple of days, just seeing how high I can get it while in traffic (hey, what else am I going to do?) and it is REALLY hard to not rev it! If the engine isn't revving to at least 4k, it just doesn't sound right! At 8k... wow, what a sound!
The brakes... yeah, they get very noisey when they get hot. Several heavy applications and they sound like fog horns at slow speeds. They also don't like sitting in traffic stopping and going, I suspect this is the cause of my squeal when I come to a stop.
My complaints about the ZCP and possibly M3 in general. The useless M Track Mode... it is still way too much of a nursemaid. I love the steering wheel, but I am concerned it won't hold up. I don't miss the steering wheel controls at all, cruise.. would be nice to still have, I have some long trips coming up. And the Tire Pressure Monitoring system is junk.. I have been driving around with a warning light on my dash ever since my flat last week. Nothing seems to work to reset it.