Grimly

I’m going to read the rules.

Harley take-off Showa air shocks, is my choice. There are thousand of Harley owners who ditch perfectly good shocks and exhausts with almost no miles on them. I've been using them for years. The air shocks on my GS850 were about $25 from the States and the seller was clued-up enough to send them USPS for fairly cheap. My last set of Harley mufflers from a Dyna-thing cost me 99p

To address the original issue - like the OP, I've been bugged by the rear brake being over-powerful on my GS850s, but then found the answer. That unmentionable make of bike and car Civic pads. They take a bit of fitting, but don't bite as much as the bike-specific ones and give a nice progressive pedal. Oh yeah, and they were a quarter of the price, too.