About time for a 535d update I think!
Owned my 535d since late October and covered about 5000 miles in that time (a lot of holiday season driving up and down the country helped there). I've averaged 37.87mpg over those miles - I would say the long trips account for 50% of the mileage, 30-40% of the rest is commuter type stuff in stop/start motorway traffic and the last 10% is "just driving", so a pretty average sort of use.
Considering the power available and the weight of the car, an average of late-30s is just about acceptable. On a long run, early 50s is very easily doable if you're happy to drive at 70 and manage your speed in traffic and so on.
As for the actual car itself, it is remarkable how different it is from my old F10 520d. Same car, same gearbox, same seats etc but somehow the LCI F10 just feels like a totally different car, both to be in and to drive. In almost every way this is a positive thing - the car feels much more solid, more assured and just has a better 'atmosphere'. The steering wheel is significantly crappy, the middle plastics and the wheel buttons are simply not as good as they were in the prefacelift car.
Over the 5000 or so miles I've driven I've been playing with how best to drive the car - it is odd having a powerful diesel as the torque and power don't "match up" in the same way as it does in my equally powerful 35i Z4, despite both being turbocharged etc. For a big, heavy saloon car I think it drives pretty well having learned how it responds and how to make it do what I want to do. Still, physics is all-powerful and the weight does show itself from time to time, usually in very quick changes of direction to avoid pot-holes and suchlike.
Finally, the 'issue' of the mode selector. ECO Pro, Comfort, Sport, Sport+. Quite simply, the default mode of Comfort is pointless in my view. The car drives well enough to make excellent town progress in ECO Pro, while returning at least 10% better fuel economy. In actual fact, the way that ECO Pro changes the power delivery/throttle response makes smooth town driving extremely easy. At least so far (and recognising it is winter), the changes to the AC/ventilation do not make any noticeable difference to my comfort levels in the car.
Sport (in either D or S) is great - all the power, holds the gears longer and really does make maximum use of the engine. It is really nice to drive in this mode when you've got enough clear road ahead of you or you're in London and need to dial up the aggression to max.
Comfort mode is sort of lost in the middle. Throttle response compromised enough to be annoying with none of the fuel economy or power delivery smoothness of ECO Pro. I now default to enabling ECO Pro as the first thing I do when I start the car.
awesome! I will try that 
