Pushing 40 into a distant memory eh
Noggy, a lot of the space under the big fuel tanks on sports bikes is often largely taken up by the airbox. The fuel is generally held low down for weight distribution/centre of gravity reasons (although you can go too low with C of G on bikes - it's more a race car thing really, as the 500 GP boys found out when the designers of some of those consulted with car people and it focced the handling right up.
Paul, dropping the bike on the forks definitely quickens the steering a bit, and without much loss in stability - well, not till around max chat anyway
The shock just makes it all so much better with handling the bumpy bits without the whole plot getting completely out of shape, everything more settled and controlled - much, much better. Well worth it.
Oh dear, have we hijacked Noggy's thread? What a shame