Thanks for your observations, NuJiangAmelliott. You're right of course. Nowadays a marketing department has lots of sources of what the people, not the poltroonish magazine writers, want, and they probably listen. The example of the super motards is a good one.

As an aside, one of the features that the true enthusiast cried for was a fully enclosed chain. Yamaha responded with the finest ever system in that TR1.

The 1980's Yamaha 1000cc TR-1 had a chain case filled with 1kg of bearing grease and the service schedule called for chain replacement at 60,000 km!!! many owners saw far more mileage than this out of their chains with minimum adjustments, less noise and a cleaner back end, as well as a continuously efficient drive system. All the above was achieved using ordinary non O-ring chains.