The only other suggestion I can offer is that the car has been cleaned 'enthusiastically' with an inappropriate something!! I only ever use a lens cloth on mine, but with the lenses being plastic and the cameras no more than web-cams, the quality is never going to be up to a lot really - despite BMW charging as much as a good Canon 'L' lens with proper glass would be in the shops!!
And as you surmise, they're cr@p in low light. Given the amount of 'clever' electronics on board, you would have expected that someone might have suggested turning the puddle lights on when top view is selected in the dark......but then again, may be not!! That would have been implementing something the 'right' way.
Richard