This is what a Marketing Department is for.
There is some perfect price where the die-hard top-of-the-line buyers will feel good paying (I.e. those who would pay $100k for an M3Comp over a 60k 335), but also low enough that the volume justifies the R&D.
For the LR vs P, they basically “snuck” some of the R&D costs of the P into the price of the LR (in 2018/2019) and then the post-2019 Boost. They kept the M3P price a bit lower by tapping into some of the “on the fence” market.
Bottom line, they will do what the marketing department says will make them the most money. Ideally for all of us, they crank out a 2.5/10.5 M3L and then have lots of space to milk those top-5% M3LR buyers for a 3.0/11.0 option
. Then everyone pays exactly for what they want lol.