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Some topics will always be sensitive in bimmer communities...
Here's my perspective: a BMW is a real M car if you can throw trackdays and especially Nurburgring laps at it without breaking it (ignoring consumables such as brakes and tires). I know many might say that applies to most performance brands, but that's not really the case. Until Porsche changed that for GT models a few years ago, BMW and Aston Martin were the only brands where you didn't risk losing the full warranty if the car was used on a race track (even for cars like a Nissan GT-R). For M models, the only you thing you can't do is actual Motorsport events.
BMW internally is aware of that expectation, as you can see how the 1M evolved to the M2 versions. The 1M was pretty well known for overheating on short courses on hot days - that's one of the things they worked on to make it a "full M car". That's something that's not in the "must have" catalogue for most AMG cars. For a "full M car", the ability to do track duty is a necessity - even though 95% (or more) of the owners won't go there.
Regarding this discussion here: the real question is how the car makes you feel when you are NOT on a racetrack regularly. In terms of how technically special an M car is, my F10 is probably on #3 after E30 M3 and E60 M5. In terms of how special it feels though, most people would put the car at the lower end and rate an E39 M5 near the top, although in terms of how technically special it is, the E39 is objectively close to the bottom.
So here's my recommendation: if you use the car on the road, buy what you like best for you and forget about badges. But if you use it on race tracks, don't think for a second there's not a world of difference between a "full M car" (you know what I mean) and one of the M branded cars.
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