I think you're right Positron...it is said that we all have less and less time for recreation nowadays and for most it is the chance of maybe 1 day a week during the summer pending family commitments....these super nakeds tap into that to give as much fun as possible over a short time.......& looking at tank ranges on modern bikes confirms that as although biking forums will tend to have lots of guys that do mega mileage i think the trend is for guys to be only doing short local blasts of 50-100 miles and calling it a day.
This is all dependant on the age perspective
I don't think anything has changed in this regard in last 10-20 years. Young folks starting families have less time. But older folks whose kids have flown the nest, perhaps approaching or at retirement have more time and disposable income. The so-called born-agains.
I think maybe people have just started to realise there's more to bikes than just outright performance (
), I myself started to get bored with seeing so many sports bikes everywhere, and I think the manufacturers have reacted to people with this view - thank God, as we now have much more variety to look at than, say, 10 years ago, and older folks often don't bend to fit so well
These are the folks, as said, with the disposable income, so the manufacturers need to consider their opinions/buying trends. Look how many BMW GSs there are around - comfort, I would guess, is a big factor in their sales success as it's only a small proportion, surely, that actually end up circumnavigating the globe!
But I think you are right in that there are many who only want something for a Sunday blast and not to tour on. But I don't see anything much still to replace the early Fazers, 600 and 1000 gen 1. I don't think the MT-09 is the uber-competent all-rounder that these are (not arguing that it's not a good bike!), and aside from the Z1000SX, I don't know what else that's new fits that gap.