I think the most annoying part of the job is dealing with the wheel well liner. The trunk part I guess is a little annoying as well. Once you get the wheel well liners out, the upper shock mount is held in by two 13mm nuts. The shock bolts through the lower control arm with an E14 bolt and 16mm nut. I jacked up the control arm to finesse the bolt in and out but otherwise was a pretty easy job. Unlike the Bilsteins in my E55, I was able to unhook the plug at the shock so I didn't have to run all of the harness all over the place like I did in the E55. That was nice.
The new shocks look good and hopefully won't leak soon. The ride seems improved actually. Otherwise, no issues.
I kind of damaged the plastic lower control arm covers and I took a picture of their part numbers. I fortified them with zipties for now which will be fine. I suspect these are quite cheap though. Yeah, one is $10 and the other is $13 at the dealer. I'll replace them at some point.