That is why I ride BMW motorcycles (and the handling). They introduced ABS to their bikes in the late 80s and many manufacturers still do not offer them. My 03 Beemer has power, integrated ABS brakes that stop on a dime. A BMW does not make a good lead vehicle if there is a mixed group of motorcycles riding together. A typical BMW rider will ride normally on a crooked road and leave the cruiser type bike because they can't keep up. When they stop, the other brands of bikes have difficulty stopping before they run over the BMW.

 

The previous generation M5 and M3 did have very strong brakes, although fading issues under really hard track use did occur. This problem has been addressed on the latest M5, M6, and was even corrected on the M3 Competition package cars (by far my favorite M3 to drive), with larger cross drilled and vented brakes. They dissipate heat much more efficiently and don't fade as much under track use. For street driving they are complete overkill.

I agree that Porsche makes probably the best braking cars you can buy right now. The cerramic rotors are amazing, we had a car come in on trade equipped with them, and you could not make them fade if you wanted to. The only downside was the unusual noise, kind of a gritty noise under hard application.

 

I am no expert on riding a motorcycle, although in my new home state of South Dakota everyone seems to have one. I had plenty of clients that owned both BMW cars and motorcycles. They had similar "complaints" about riding with other bikes, but if you look at the design intent of a BMW vs a Harley Davidson; they are a night and day difference. The BMW is designed as a practical mode of transportation that someone could commute on every day to work in a rapid comfortable manner. The Harley is designed to be functional transportation, but not the kind you would put up with riding every day; Harley's are all about image and making the rider feel like they are not really an accountant in a biker outfit.

 

Oooops.........brain fart. The ADVANTAGE to crossdrilled/slotted rotors is de-gassing by-products of the pad. However, due to modern pad material, this has become unneccessary.

If you go to corner-carvers.com, drilled/vented rotors are a very disputed subject concerning cars.......I still like them but decided against them for various reasons.

 

For North American vehicles - slotted/cross drilled gives little benefit apart from giving more even pad wear, and cleaning your pads, in reality neither of them provide a huge advantage.
This is due to the fact all "your" vehicles are fitted pretty much exclusively with Semi-metallic pads (to prevent aforementioned brake dust).
However - those of us in other countries (and this is primarily with European vehicles - or those of us that fit these type of pads to every vehicle they purchase ) often have organic or low metallic pads - and they still do give off quite substantial amounts of gases...
All pads have a "temp zone" where they provide maximum braking effort.
When designing a braking system you need to take a few things into account.
1. Get it to this "temp zone" as quickly as possible.
2. Never let it out of this "temp zone"

The first thing was one of the main issues of early carbon/ceramic brakes (along with noise mentioned by hobo), until you had some heat into them, it was like driving with ice rotors.
So, with larger rotors, yes you have a greater area to distribute your heat - but you have a greater area to heat up too...
So, as a general rule, bigger discs aren't always better, you are much more likely to see better braking with changing your pads (and your braking fluid).

(oh, and another advantage of organic pads, they don't conduct heat through to your caliper well - less chance of boiling your fluid )

 

I know/knew of getting pads up to operating temp.......... but like you said, it's a "zone". Being above the temp can affect performance as much as below the temp.

(Much like a combustion chamber's operating temp is controlled with liquid cooling, I've read of people dabbling in liquid cooled calipers!!)

When you "begged to differ" I misunderstood your "retain heat" comment to mean you wanted as much heat as possible.