So I was changing my oil yesterday and something my brother had mentioned to me came to mind. As we all know, the oil filters on the RS6 are an absolute PITA to get at, and (unless there's a better way I haven't yet discovered) they tend to make a bit of a mess when removed. My brother has an E39 540i, and on THAT car the filter is a breeze to change, because it's accessed from above, in a neat little housing, and all that is replaced is the filter cartridge (read: no mess).
That got me to thinking, could this be done on an RS6? My brother thought that the 540 has a similar connection as most cars down below, but instead of installing a filter there BMW added a sandwich-plate-type adapter and routed two hoses up to the filter housing up top. In looking closer at my car, it appears it also has a sandwich plate installed for the front oil cooler, but there should still be room to install another one (or some kind of similar adapter) to route some hoses up and install a cartridge-type filter housing in place of the SAI pump (mine has been removed, making a neat little spot to install something, it's even on the correct side of the engine).
What do folks think? Is this feasible? Has anyone considered or done this already? Any other input? If this could be done without compromising any other aspects of the oil loop, I think it would be a HUGE improvement over the stock setup.