Brake pads Centric or OEM BMW

$930 at a local BMW expert shop. That's front and rear, pads and rotors.

My dealer charges about $1100 for rear brakes and rotors, and about $1200 for front brakes and rotors, so $2300ish total. I got all pads and rotors done at a local shop for about $1100, and transmission fluid (+ pan and filter) done for $750 at the same shop.

I like Centric’s Posi Quiet brake pads. A little more bite than original pads with substantially less brake dust.

A common brake upgrade to the E34 5 series was to install E38 (7 series) brakes. Only downside is you also have to install larger wheels.

My understanding is the OEM brakes have well-rounded performance. In spider chart terms, it would look like a round pizza with one slice taken off, and that would be due to dust. They still excel with high performance, solid longevity all at a reasonable cost

Centric pads and rotors are pretty good. As said above Akenono is OE for pads, maybe rotors too. I run Akebono pads and Brembo standard rotors on my cars. Nice and clean and never any noise and I swear the standard brembo rotors stop harder the centrics drilled/slotted rotors.

A few years ago I went with Centric Posi-Quiet Ceramic front pads - CENTRIC 10505690, currently $25.79 on RockAuto, and some Pagid front rotors from there. I know Pagid is a VW OEM and I have no reservations about their brake parts. I’ve run the posi-quiet pads on MK7 Golf and GTI and they’ve been fine.

My understanding is that the pads that bmw uses create a lot of brake dust because they are ‘soft’ to give a nice smooth pedal feel.

BMW OEM pads have done that for decades as far as I can tell. Just get aftermarket pads and you'll get the same performance with less mess.

But seriously, having owned several BMW's and Porsche products (equally bad for brake dust) I've just gotten used to cleaning wheels more often and ignoring dirty wheels when I don't have time or energy to clean them that day.