Sunroof pop up feature it fixed. The culprit wasn't the ball point pen spring under the little rectangular push up button shown in Ryan's picture that was missing but due to the little rectangular button itself being installed 180 degrees out of position which is an error proofing faux pas on the part of BMW engineers. For the record one must be careful about the white rectangular button on top of the spring inside the switch. Orientation is critical. There is a very small lever on top of the rectangular button that pushes a metal contact outboard as the button is depressed making contact to activate the sunroof rear section/pop up feature. I had this small lever on top of the button oriented inboard hence the button could not activate the outboard contact. BMW deliberately designed the internal narrow button rectangular to remove one degree of freedom for mis-installing the button but made the switch such that the narrow button still could be installed 180 degrees out. That likely wouldn't happen today as error proofing is scrutinized to the nth degree with just about all designs out there.
FYI to those that take apart the sunroof switch for cleaning and have this issue.
Thanks to all that responded and to Ryan for taking the trouble of posting the pic of the switch.
George