Always nice to see a reply from Raúl! 
I spare my contributions, so you can consider yourself lucky :-)
I have never trusted the rear grab bar. I have ridden pillion maybe four or five times in my lifetime, most of them before I got my licence, and I always preferred to get a hold to the driver. Slight to avoid much body contact, but enough to get a quick grip if the situation needed it.
On the other hand, when I was in the isle of man in 2007 to see the races, I didn't have my bike with me. I was a guest in a friend's house, and he, not being a biker, had some biker friends. One of them offered me to ride pillion with him. I couldn't put down an offer to ride on the very IOM TT course, even if it was pillion.
That guy rode a CBR1100XX. I didn't know him and he told me to get a grip to the passenger grab handles. I was reluctant at first, but he rode very carefully, both in braking and accelerating. I can tell you in some places of the mountains I could see more than 120 mph on the clock and never felt in danger! As my friend told me beforehand, "I don't ride bikes but I would have no qualms riding with him"
Now back to the original topic. I remember an article about the CB750 written at the time -bought the old magazine-. The article started like this: "This is the CB750, we remove the gas tank and then there are some springs for the positive throttle closing. The springs are shrouded with a rubber tube. We couldn't find a reason for the tube to be there. Asked the Honda engineers and they said: "they are there to keep the spring from pinching the carb vent tube". We think the chances are unlikely, but this is the way Honda engineers look after every minute detail.
Later bikes have more superfluous things. Many of them have plastic thingies between the tank and the frame to "keep the bike flow", or fake air scoops like the V-Max, or fake air filters like the Yamaha Virago. 70's bikes in general, Hondas in particular -as are the ones I'm more familiar with- were very basic in the design area. The evolved from the classic english bike, the english bike evolved from the bicycle design, and the bicycle is a mechanical copy of the horse. I mean, nobody started from a blank piece of paper. Headlights were round because the parabola is the geometrical figure that can make a set of diverging light rays to converge in parallel. Now bikes have futuristic headlights, with multiple reflector sections. They may be more efficient when it comes to putting the light where it is more needed, but much of it is because today, buyers like futuristic looks and buy vehicles because theirs are out-of-fashion. Nothing wrong about new bikes, I love them too, but just like Gordon, there is something about the simplicity of old bikes that rings a bell inside of me.
