Johnny and members of this board:
Plenty of other machines like cars, motorbikes, washers, dryers have design faults. My concern is that BMW produced these machines from 1987 to 1993/1994 and did not fix the problem!
Many of the other design problems that I have found in BMWs do not result in your getting stranded by the side of the road. I have owned, in age order and R75/6 (uses some oil and the clunk when shifting is not something enjoyable), an E36 (constant replacement of the lower control arm bushing), E39 wagon (rear subframe bushing were crap and badly designed), E92 (oil filter housing leak), F25 (breaks a little underdesigned for spirited driving). All of them are annoyances, none are "sorry, call the tow truck" like this spline thing.
I hereby declare that I will faithfully lube the splines, but I still do not like it.
I would be riding, but it is cold in Michigan already !!!