LOts of people seem to be second guessing BMW's design decisions. Their decisions were not made in a vacuum, LOTs of engineers worked on the design, and with a clean sheet of paper, they ended up having to design a new way to do lots of things. Everything in design is a compromise...personally, I think they did a good job given the design goal. Now, that goal may not coincide with everyone's needs or desires, but you can't blame BMW for optimizing the one they chose. If it doesn't fit your needs, you should look elsewhere.
There will, eventually, be additions to the I-line, designed for different purposes, that are likely to have similar innovative features. And, as battery tech improves, range will go up and, I fully expect drivetrains similar to that on the i8 will also be offered to allow unlimited trip length using the existing fuel infrastructure. Fuel cells will likely show up at some point, but right now, their refueling capabilities are very restricted - far worse than an EVSE or CCS network, and those are poor. FWIW, making elemental hydrogen takes a fair amount of energy...hydrogen has a really high affinity for binding to other elements to make incompatible molecules...stripping those away takes energy, and compressing it to become dense enough to be useful takes a fair amount, too.
