I was actually pretty close to buying one, based mostly on Nonekings' reports and feedback. I'm not even sure if I'm glad I didn't because I'm enjoying my 500 immensely, a seriously well made bike. Maybe different design teams? Amazing how one product can be so good, and another so problematic. But then, BMW... No wait, apart from the stanchion recall, which was a serious design fail, my GSA is still my pride and joy.
Hope these issues do not pop up on the 890?
KTM did not really market consumer Adv bikes before 2003, the focus was always on the competition type bikes.
Then some motards, and eventually large capacity, high performance road bikes.
And always hands-on, higher maintenance products, using top quality components.
The type of product that doesn't suffer fools, neither the way they use them.
Many guys cooked rear brakes on 950/990s, to the point they got a bad reputation for that. Some may have been faulty, but in the majority of cases the rider was resting his foot on the brake pedal.
In the above diatribe from Big Oil, the one rider admits he possibly misused the clutch (most likely because he is incapable of riding properly and has a lack of mechanical sympathy).
Anybody who has ridden tight, single track paths with friends who have 1150/1200 GSs will know what a burnt clutch on those beasts smells like.......no thanks, not for me. Not if I want to do that, anyway.