5axis -
First off, I'm not an excellent/experienced rider. Most of my saddle time was on a 500cc Yamaha for a year in South Africa/Lesotho (and they actually
are out to kill you there).
A group of friends are the wheelie/endo/watchtower knuckleheads, and through them I've tried a lot of bikes. One of these guys buys bikes that have been laid down and fixes them -- I mean really, actually fixes what needs fixing -- and then resells them. So he's got a couple of scuffed panels that I'm putting back onto the bike for the first few weeks of my ownership. Seriously.
Having ridden a bunch of bikes, I felt more confident leaning the Mille down (and not to knee-scraping angles) and she felt "nimbler" and very stiff. I will have to get used to the front brake "bite" on the Mille, which was very different from the other bikes.
The R1 has insane power; it just keeps on pulling in every gear... I don't need that. It's not like the Mille is under-powered (130hp) but it's more set up as a handling bike, which is what I wanted. In professional hands, any of the bikes I tried could be world-class, but the Mille felt like a scalpel more than a chainsaw and the hardest core riders I know said they'd take the Mille out if it was a day full of twisties.
Thom -
Dunno if you want the organs responsible for removing impurities from the body... having high-functioning kidneys and liver might turn you conservative.
JP