I might get some longer bolts and keep the spacers. It does give it a more aggressive stance. I ran them on my M5 (with longer bolts) and it was also lowered.
I suppose I could have dropped the front sub-frame, but I would still have had to separate the struts from the steering knuckles, or released the strut tops from the fenders, and I'm sure that would have been a lot of alignment issues to deal with.
Thanks for the tip on prying out the inner CV joint outer shell. Worked like a champ.
I'll clean out all the old grease and repack with the correct stuff.