OP: I really don't know if the fuel is automatically shut off or not after the computer detects a misfire that bad.

You can pull the offending coil to do a visual check that has been pretty reliable to see if it is the coil. Look at the upper contact point. If it is a dull grey, the coil is bad. I don't know why this is correct, but so far this dull grey shows up every time a coil is bad.

5-cylinder driving stories?! I think I have one…

My wife decided that it was better to ride the rev limiter on our '87 325iS (Conforti chip -- higher limit) between turns 4 and 5 at Laguna, b/c it was only for a short time…too short to shift and then downshift. Snapped a rocker arm…

We were lucky in that the rocker arm just fell into an oil return. So, I disconnected the fuel injector and drove that beast back home to Vegas! Long way to go on 5-cylinders...

well the X has run quite happily all week on 5 cylinders with no problems. The engine management system must have shut the fuel off to the missfired cyclinder as no other issues reported with lean mixures or O2 failures etc. I replaced the coil last night and everything is back to normal.

Funny thing is I did check the contact point on the failed coil pack and it was a dull grey colour - how wierd is that? :dunno:

I would change all of them along with new plugs .