I'm poor. I'm bloody poor. I've been driving around on Shite Old Bikes(tm) for 11 years, and officially "had enough" when the clutch on my old BMW R80/7 exploded, taking the gearbox with it. 

"I'm gonna buy something wots new", quoth I, "with warranty and everything, yea even unto the horns". Anyway, I puttered round the showrooms, armed with my knowledge of bikes produced in the last ten years (I'd never owned a bike younger than ten, you see (well, apart from a gawdawful YB100 *many* moons ago)) gleaned from Bike, UBG, and UKRM. 

One thing foremost in my mind was reliability. I don't drive a car. In fact, I've never even sat behind the wheel of a car, so my daily 20 miles each way commute is done by bike in all weathers. Alright, so I could have got a C90, but I wanted someting a bit silly as well. Basically, it came down to the Hornet, Fazer, or Bandit (all 600). According to anyone with the opinion, the Hornet and Fazer are both better bikes than the Bandit, *but*; 

a) The Bandit is considerably cheaper
b) The performance differances don't really make much differance when commuting in traffic every day.
c) The Bandit looks gorgeous - the others are (IMHO) pig ugly. 

Couple of moans though- 

1) The stock tyres (Battlax) are *shite* - at Suzuki's recommendations, (33psi front, 36 rear), then the bike is squirmy as hell, and at higher pressures the tyres turn into soap in the wet.
2) The pillion footpegs being an integral part of the frame. When I binned the bugger in July (because of moan (1), the left footpeg bent up, twisting the rear section of the frame, making repairs a good deal more expensive than they should have been. 

Other than those though - here's my thoughts on the bike, after riding it every day (except when it was poorly) for six months.

It's quick - I don't know how much of this is my never having ridden a "modern" bike, but the Bandit seems to pull effortlessly right through the rev range.
It's smooth - with the exception of a patch of buzzy vibes at 6krpm.
It's quiet - exhaust note doesn't cut in till around 9krpm, but you do get a nice zshshshshshshshshs noise when accelerating.
It's as light as a light thing - it can be chucked about all over the place in traffic. 

All in all, it's a great bike - my only regret is that I didn't spend an extra grand on the 1200, but c'est la vie.