Thanks Vince - you have made a point that was missing. I see that one of the bikes displayed by someone here was to use a Blast engine, and now that they are no longer made, are thinking of going to a Suzuki 600 cc water cooled engine (the new Mac motorcycles?).
And then we get into the advantage of fairings and it begins to look like both fairings and liquid cooling are a good way to go - especially the longer engine life part.
As I was trying to understand these sports tourers, I saw that one of the videos showed a Kawasaki Concours, very briefly, with all the fairings off. It was quite impressive, the obvious amount of engineering that went into it. I wondered why these bike makers don't show more of their bikes with the fairings off as that, to me, is the most interesting part. Fairings are fairings and bikes with them all seem pretty much alike, especially in this copy cat area of the Sports Tourer.
In one review, there was the comment that a Ducati sports tourer type had less ccs but good torque throughout the range. When you needed power, it was right there for you, regardless of speed. I don'[t think that one was liquid cooled, and the ccs were maybe a third less, down in the 800 range.
A comment was also made as to how deceptive these bikes are, with their streamlined fairings, curved windshields and all. One guy said he was up to over 90 mph without even being aware of it. And I have heard of others going ninety and above, cruising across the western states at around a hundred, and it gets me to thinking of how much of a thread their life then hangs on. Hit a bad place in the road, have a tire blow out, any of a number of things, and you would be dead meat. Having all that power and speed potential makes dying a bit too easy - and I guess there are some deaths out there.
But, again, it seems to me that a price is paid for all the emission standards and the EFI and things that go with them in that higher power is needed to get the same performance as with the older bikes.