I ws reading through our blogs and it looks like we have an answer directly from the source at BMW.
Comments below:
I was at a local BMW Club meeting last week where Larry Koch (Current BMW M Brand Manager) was the guest speaker. He said that the anyone interested in the E90 M3 should go ahead and lease the current E46 M3 for 30 months as that lease would be up just when the E90 M3 is available. So sorry to anyone expecting the next M3 in 1 year or less.
-Speed_Racer_M3