I owned a 2000 VFR for a couple years. The biggest problem with these bikes is they have no power under 6k rpm. You constantly have to be shifting and spinning the engine up to make the bike go.
I decided to look around for something lighter since last summer as well. I went and test rode a few different bikes and said nah, then I decided to ride a 2009 Triumph Sprint. Wow, this bike was light, made great power, had little wind noise and the ergos were great. While looking for a CL find on one, I found a 1998 Ducati ST2 with only 10k miles, new tires, 12k service just done for only $3k, about half what I was planning to spend on a Sprint - gotta love this buyers market. I decided to go check it out, and I bought it after the test ride. This bike has fantastic low end punch, probably better than the Sprint up to 5k rpm - which is mainly what I use. It's 460 lbs dry, color matched hardbags unlike the gear driven VFRs, fuel injected, handles better than my old VFR, has compression, rebound and preload adj front and rear, has a great sound even with stock exhaust. The ergos are also better than the VFR for some reason - like the Sprint the bars are closer not higher.
All i'm suggesting is open up your options a bit, this bike does everything I want a bike to do and is a lot of fun to ride, and I didn't spend any money - I got $3k for my ST.
).Here is one on the autobahn.
