I would have a 2013 honda in my garage if it were not for the air forks. The motor did feel a little weak to me, I put about 40 min on a 13 honda before buying my suzuki. However, that is not what stopped me. its a 450, its still fast enough. With a pipe im sure it would be fine.
I've seen it first hand in the morning, the air fork pressure is one thing, 2 hours later its 4 or 5 pounds different. Thats annoying.
Ron Lachien, I'd say he is pretty credible, talked to him quite a bit before buying my bike.. He says he has a 13 kawi he doenst even ride because of them, he still rides his 12. He was getting ready to go to germany right when I talked to him, where he would have to ride a 13 and he wasnt excited about it. he said the past weekend at glen helen at the vet championship he witnessed 2 diff kawis eat it because their forks gave out.
its not like a leaky oil seal, when it goes, it goes. you pack up and go home. you dont wipe it off and keep going. I've also heard but am not sure if its true, that it almost acts like a vacuum and sucks them down when it goes.
regardless of if they leak or not, they will require maintenance. Sure you're probably supposed to maintain your forks that you have now every 15 hours but idk about you but I sure as hell don't. The air forks you probably are going to need to do that or you will have your issues.
the honda felt GREAT.. i felt very comfortable, it felt solid, light, etc... if it had normal forks I woulda been in, but I wanst ready to jump on first year production stuff. I made that mistake with my ktm 350 and had problems the first year off and on with injection issues and such, kind of learned my lesson with first year stuff.
The RMZ is a great package, if I can get the suepension sorted out. on most of our local smooth tracks it probably wont even be so much of an issue, but on a "real" motocross track that gets rough its going to be a challenge to stay on the damn thing.
im not 100% sure if im glad I got the RMZ instead of the Honda, but I'm definitely happy, so that is all that matters. At the end of the day, pick your favorite color and go with it...