The mistake you're making is to ASSUME that there was a valid, viable reason behind the final form of the kit. It's also very easy to see a host of small changes (from personnel moving around, coming/going, simple error, etc.) that stack up to be a major issue. If you think "well, that just CAN'T happen," realize that Earls has been selling stainless braided brake hose kits for the S197 for going on a decade now, with the brackets installed backwards from the factory...
Radial/thrust bearing: It's entirely possible that they initially designed the CC plates to work with the stock strut mount (radial bearing) and the stock replacement struts. Now, they do a coilover kit, and the "engineer" putting it together goes to the shelf, grabs a CC plate, and calls it good. OR somebody in accounting or marketing decides that they need to hit a particular price point, and redesigning a "perfectly good" CC plate would be the go/no-go decision on production of the part.
Spring rates: Some yahoo, who may have come from the BMW camp, looks at the weight numbers after reading on the interwebz that the "new" chassis is lighter, and decides that a rate change is needed. Remebering that the M3 runs heavier springs in the rear, he just swaps them around and calls it good. OR the GED-less people packaging the kits from parts bins just grabbed the wrong stuff... Then, the tech support genius looks at the catalog and/or engineering parts list, and says "Yup, you've got the right stuff."
Understand, I'm not saying that the above IS what happened, I'm saying it COULD BE what happened. This may be a case of having a niche product built to a competitive price point. Think about it for a moment: double-adjustable monotube dampers with a remote reservoir, "USA made," and they're cheaper (by more than a few hundred!) than my AST single-adjustable non-remotes... OR to put it a different way: Your whole kit cost less (at list price!) than the rear dampers on the FR500S... The problem with niche products is that the volume is comparatively low. I would be willing to bet that Koni has sold more sets of Sport dampers for the S197 in one year, than Moton, AST, Eibach, and JRZ combined have sold over the last eight. To keep costs down to compete (price point) with the Chinese junk coming over, that means something has to give. Usually, that means either component quality, or R&D in some form. I did an install on a HIGH-END set of dampers (brand-name redacted!) and the spacers for the rear Heim joint were a full 1/4" wider than the shock bracket on the axle... Oops. It happens. High-volume parts are generally simple, bolt-on, with no issues. Niche parts usually need a bit of fiddling to get them 100% right.
