To my mind, the world bike market shakes out alot like the world car market.
If you want the best style, you buy Italian. Nobody can style like the Italians. They are in a class by themselves.
If you want iconic American, you have to buy American. American Iron is unique, and you can't get it anywhere else. I think all the other countries are still trying to figure out why anyone would want American Iron. They just don't understand it. It's a cultural thing.
If you want appliance-like reliability, you buy Japanese. Runs like a watch for years, hitting 15000 rpm every day, without ever looking at it. Provides good performance and value. Completely soul-less. Planned obsolescence. Landfill waiting to happen. Motor vehicle equivalent of a disposable razor. It works, you throw it away when done, and you never miss it.
Overcomplicated expensive engineering, then buy German. Only the Germans can figure out how to use 25 high-pressure-cast parts to accomplish a task that the Japanese can do with 2 stamped parts, and the British and Americans didn't even do at all.
And for the most visceral road feel, and human connection to the machine, buy British.
The Germans, Italians, Americans, and Japanese still haven't figured out what "road feel" is, and they don't even understand that there is an ethereal "man-machine" connection. Unfortunately, neither did 99% of the Brit bike customers, so they went belly up at the first sign of competition from Japan.
But now, they are all blending together, because none of these countries actually make vehicles anymore.
Nope.
The EPA decides what they should build, and they conform to it.
Hopefully, it still has wheels when they're done.
They are all so ugly that they have to cover up as much as they can with bodywork, which is also ugly(even some ugly ones from Italy!). I mean, how do you make a smokestack-scrubber look good?
It's all industrial air compressor technology now, covered in pollution controlling hardware, tubes, hoses, wires, and devices that go "click".
People have told me that there's a motorcycle under there somewhere.