The K7/K8 was a knee-jerk "parts bin special" that Honda quickly put together with little thought, when the F/F1 failed miserably in the sales race against Kawasaki's KZ650 and Suzuki's venerable GS750, and was only ever meant as a "stop gap" until Honda could roll out it's DOHC 4's, which were also stinkers, for the most part.
The F2/F3 fought back somewhat as they were easily the fastest, best handling, and best braked SOHC4's of all time, (if a little "fragile, ha ha!) but it was a case of "too little, too late", and the extreme pig-dog fugliness of the K7/K8 manged to kill off all hope of any resurgence of the the SOHC4 line, except the CB650, which continued as a cheap commuter until the early 1980's, when Honda was having all sorts of problems with reliability, in particular the VF750/1000's and CBX750's hand-grenading all over the place on a regular basis.
Wisdom in hindsight is a truly wonderful thing I know, but as I've often opined, had Honda thought for a moment, and fitted the F2/F3 engine, wheels, forks etc into a K6 frame, I've no doubt it would have sold like cheap false teeth in North Dakota! Cheers, Terry.
