You make very good points. For classic good looks and simple bike get an injected 900 & have the engine modded to make the performance where you want it to be, without crushing your fuel economy -petrol stops every 80 odd miles gets old . For brute power -with less simple (watercooled) engine & crap fuel economy- & loads of fun around town and home patch get S4 R RS etc Better suspension too but possbily needing a refurb due to use/ age. For modern power levels, electronic gadgets and vaguely Monster styling get the 1200, R or S. I think they're all good bikes, it depends on your taste and what your're looking for, or perhaps on what you already have in the garage. The best mistresses are rarely an identikit copy of your current girl...
Was the omission of the M796/1100 deliberate? I think the 1100 is a nice compromise of updated looks and trad air-cooled engine but with decent power (100bhp ish). The “s” version also has full Ohlins IIRC. It’s just a shame they didn’t bless that iteration of the Monster with the 848 and 1098 engines, presumably because they didn’t want them treading on the toes of the already slow selling Streetfighter. I wonder if anyone has ever done an engine swap - unlike the S4/R/RS the 796/1100 generation frames are totally different to the superbikes so I imagine it’d be a lot of work
I think the M900 (injected & pepped up) & S4 R/S are both much better bikes than the 796 & the 1200 way better than the 1100. Still good bikes -but less good!
