I now have had my first 'real' ride on the new suspension after first switching to a fully suspended seat. Bit like great wine - just gets better and better. To get the maximium benefit of the upgrade to the front suspension you really need to move to a fully suspended seat.
It acheives two things - both IMHO both good. First up is provides a degree of isolation to your back and backside from road shocks as the seat is no longer connected rigidly to the up down motion of the rear wheel. Second - and more inportantly it reduces the unsprung weight (by the total weight of rider and pillon) that the rear suspension needs to deal with; as a result the rear damper - whatevey you use - has a much easier life and actually has a chance to do its job.
Yesterday I covered a wisker over 170 miles, mostly in hilly country. As I noted earlier I found that I was unintentionaly cornering at higher speeds than before the changes plus I found that the brakes were more effective and overall the bike was way more stable - at all speeds. Within the 170 miles was around 8 miles of unsealed road with a fine gravel surface. Even on the gravel the bikes handling and feeling of ride security was greatly improved with the suspension actually managing the varing surface. With the original suspension setup on unmade roads there was a lot of wheel hop and side stepping - with the new setup these spincter tightening effects were all but absent.
Moving to a fully suspended seat is not just a matter of removing the rear FT94 friction struts and replacing them with a straight strut from the seat to a suspended part of the bike. Do this and you may well have serious issues. You need to ensure at least 2 things. 1. that there is no new stress applied to the seat frame and second, that there is no way that any part of the rear suspension can hit against the new seat strut you plan on installing. There will be a detailed article on this in OVR within a next few months. Just to keep you alert to the problems - here is a photo of what happened to a seat frame after a 'simple' strut was used to effect a fully suspended seat. Not nice.
Martyn