The proportions of the 1 series-turned 2 series-now new 2 series have always been off to me. The car has a small footprint and wants to be sporty, but when you can't drop the center of gravity and seating position like you can with something like an 86 or BRZ, you have to cope with taller door panels and a larger greenhouse which do look out of place on such a small coupe. It looks squished and toy-ish, but I'm not debating the car's performance merits, which I think is the primary reason it's purchased (and not design).
It feels obvious to me that BMW design is flailing and trying to find things that work -- but missing the mark. The last 10-15 years at BMW have been up and down and the company has dipped into the red at different points, and the feeling from dealers was that cars didn't look unique or updated enough while the design language at Mercedes and Lexus, and less so Audi, evolved so quickly. Basically: BMW designs didn't look different or unique enough. There are only so many ways to style a double kidney grill, halo headlights, etc... and think about how much Lexus' spindle/L-Finesse design has improved over the last decade, and similarly, how much Mercedes design has improved. BMWs... still look like basic BMWs, and sure there is a core base of buyers who like and want that look, but in a competitive set, the feeling has been that BMW designs aren't standing out as much as they should.
This put pressure on BMW a few years ago to take more risks and evolve design to be more outwardly exciting where possible. We started to see the kidney grills stretch more horizontally across the front of sedans, then we saw them get taller on CUVs and SUVs, then now we've moved onto the pig nose on the 4 series. The tail lights on this 2 series remind me of the tail lights on the refreshed X3, which look like some of the crazy Chinese aftermarket tail lights that showed up 10-15 years ago.
Anyway, TL;DR: BMW is changing design for the sake of changing the design, not because it necessarily looks better - and it shows. Lexus designs look good. So do Audi's. Mercedes is getting back to a more bland, "one sausage, different lengths" philosophy again, but it's still more dynamic than BMW overall. There has been a lot of weird stuff (4 Series, X6, 2 series, etc) so I hope that BMW can settle into a future-looking design language that makes their cars feel special
and beautiful again.