Good seals and forks
 

This is just a comment on how important a good suspension is. I recently replaced my leaky forks with some from a cbr f3. It's like a totally different bike now. Handles great, accelerates better off the line and the f3 master and calipers seem to stop much better. Anyway just thought I would post this as I never realized how important a good suspension is.

Anything is better than the OEM forks and breaks :-), F3 front end is pretty decent setup, I'm actually using it on another bike, never have to use more than a finger to stop hard

All bikes can be improved with decent suspension, including the VTR. Some decent springs and revalving, and in my experience the VTR fork is pretty good, and certainly not worth replacing unless it was bent. And CBR954 brakes/master are the icing on the cake, I never liked the stock brakes although their spec (4-opposed pistons) is pretty good, I suspect Honda/Nissin did not get the master/slave piston area quite right.