I have a 2007 MCS with ~49,700 miles.
At ~46,600 miles I spent a long weekend cleaning the carbon crud off of my intake valves. What a performance difference and just over 2 MPG improvement!
I have a neighbor who is an SA for MINI. He tells me that there is a SW update that can be performed for ~$150 that is suppose to adjust things to help reduce the amount of carbon build up over time.
Has anyone heard of this?
Also, I thought I read on the forum somewhere that later (after 2011?) valve covers have been redesigned to reduce the amount of PCV gasses that make it back to the intake valves. Does anyone else remember reading this?

 

I'm not sure that a software update can reduce carbon buildup in intakes. Oil vapors are recycled into the top of the block to be burnt off in the cylinders. In a non-DI engine, the valve tops are washed with gas, so hydrocarbon builds slowly. In a DI engine, there's nothing to wash the valve tops, so this buildup becomes a potential problem. How software could fix that is beyond me.