Have to agree. When I was street riding my 998, it had so much torque (to me). I loved blipping the throttle to get that instant rush of acceleration. I have to say, since moving down to the 821, even with the lighter weight, lower gearing, and electronic controls, I still miss the raw power of the 998 - there really is no replacement for displacement. I've had evil thoughts of swapping the 998 motor into the Hyper, after swapping the 1198 motor into the 998...
Riding a CBR125 for half a season is what got me to buy an SXV. The CBR was slow, but the light weight made it a riot in corners. I was imagining how much more fun it would be if it had more power with the same weight, which led me to the SXV with 4x power and a little less weight to boot.
I hate that saying about it being more fun to ride a slow bike fast than a fast bike slow - it's an old adage from the days when fast bikes had to trade maximum power for low speed civility. That's all been cured with modern technology, as your SuperDuke will attest to, and so riding a fast bike slow is no longer laborious. All things being equal, if you can ride a bike to a certain speed, I'd rather it were a fast bike than a slow one and have the extra oomph if/when I need/want it.