about rear-wheel-drive; I read a funny fact that there was a poll where alot of bmw 1-series owners got the question wether their car is fwd or rwd. A shocking 70-80% or something like that said their car was fwd
so I guess the DSC/antispin and whatnot does a good job. Although scary that ppl are so clueless. Personally the rwd is pretty much the main-reason I drive bmw... I love to drift and as i live in sweden we get alot of snowy/icy months. winter-tyres is a must have here.
I agree with jonf1982, if you get the opportunity, go bananas on an empty parkinglot with dsc off and get a feeling for it. It's very different from fwd. When you loose control of a fwd-car and start sliding sideways you just accelerate and countersteer to get pull the front straight again but with rwd you better not step on the accelerator, rather let go of it totally and countersteer, unless you wanna do a nice powerslide
then you should gently press the accelerator to maintain the backend of the car sideways while countersteering.
But with the security-systems turned ON I dont think you have to worry, just go easy on the accelerator especially when turning or changing lane