I've always had a soft spot for Kawasaki's , the z1000 felt firmer than the the FZ1 & the Fazer , you felt like you were sat on it and not in it , and you were perched more forward than the Fazer , the engine was very smooth like the Fazer and pulled in any gear ,and when I snapped back the throttle I felt like my head was being ripped off , but the lack of fairing at high speeds on the motorway put me off as I was looking for something that I could tour on , although not exclusively . If I could have found a decent ZRX1200 at the time I bought the fazer I would have liked one of those , although overall it's probably not as good as a Fazer . Sometimes overall performance doesn't matter , the Fireblade is probably better than the Ninja but I prefer the quirkiness of the Ninja .
Also Kawasaki were very accommodating in letting me demo 3 off their bikes , whereas others were not .