Essentially, the manual transmission is what did it, lol. DCT in my M3 was efficient and "fun" in the more aggressive settings (super hard downshift blips), but I found most of the satisfaction coming from my STi was perfectly downshift rev matching on my own compared to pulling the left paddle in my M3.
That and not worrying about my 20 thousand dollar motor grenading on me before the rod bearing replacement also helps

Apples to apples, even if I had a manual in the e90, it was time to let it go.