In this day and age you have to be a bit realistic.
Dealers need to earn money, and to provide a huge amount of demo's and very knowledgeable staff costs a lot of money - which goes on the bottom line, then Mr Mike (or anyone else for that matter) turns up, gets the advice, demo's a few bikes before going on-line and expecting them to match the lowest price they can find at a dealer who has no clue about the bike or a demo of that model.
This is where BMW are extremely good with all dealers having a good demo range and therefore removing the first issue of demo's or dealers doing cheap prices and telling you to go elsewhere for the demo and coming back for the cheap price.
The Yamahas (and most Jap bikes in general) tend to be a bit cheaper to buy and service than the BMW's - BMW have to pay for those huge shiny showrooms and massive fleet of demo bikes somehow.
Knowledgeable staff and honest advice is long gone (assuming it ever existed) sales staff have to earn their keep and possibly heavily rely on commission, this is where I would do my research about bikes using the internet (reviews / forums / bike press) to build a picture of what bike I might like to own before trying one for myself.
Personally I do think the Japs need to improve the range of bikes people can try before buying, but I cannot see how they can do so without doing what BMW did and culling all the little dealers to create a smaller network of larger dealers - and increasing prices for both bikes and servicing.
Gone are the days when buyers signed up on finance for whatever MCN said was the best bike in the class, the average buyer is now older, wiser and more discerning than ever before - and BMW have managed to position themselves to cater for them far better than anyone else....
....which is great if you want to buy a BMW, but if you fancy a Yamahosaki it is not so easy to get the pampering you may want.
