Is it just me, or does Kawasaki seem to be a bit stale in the new bike department. This may be somewhat unrelated to the topic at hand, or maybe not. If you look at Kawasaki's 2001 lineup, you'll notice that bikes like the KLR, Concours, Voyager, 250 Ninja, EX500, ZX-7, ZX-11, and Vulcan 750, are for the most part, unchanged since the 80's and 90's, save for some minor details and cosmetics. All these are great bikes, but not exactly modern marvels.
Could this be the reason for the company's slumping sales? I don't know, but Kawasaki has'nt exactly been flooding the market with new models.