bah..
just like ducati attracts men coming out of the closet in full liberace mode, harley attracts the new generation of 30-40 year olds who grew up on sprotbiles and want a new genre of motorcycling...
THe problem is for that demographic, namely, MY demographic, you are competing with the likes of the 'Strom and company: Comfortable, cheap, good handling, and happy to ride all day...
And the likes of the Connie 14 and company: Comfortable, cheaper than a harley, good handling, happy to ride all day, and enough thrust to change the rotation of the earth...
And the likes of BMW's K-bike line: Comfortable, slightly cheaper than a Harley, great handling, happy to ride all day, as much (or MORE) badge snob appeal as a Harley, and tons o powah.
Which, you notice, is ALWAYS better handling than a Harley, ALWAYS cheaper than a Harley, as ALWAYS comfortable as the most comfortable Harleys, and either much cheaper OR much more powerful than a Harley.
Buell was Harley's demographic out: Harley is great, but they can ONLY build cruisers, which are naturally compromised on the handling department bigtime, and stuck with only being able to be those heavy, long, V-twin engines. [1]
Buell could be "Anything thats not a Harley".
A Connie 14 competitor could have been sold as a Buell. A credible F800GS competitor could have been sold as a Buell. Hell, a Burgman competitor could be sold as a Buell (I see a lot of Burgmans on the commute...)
At this point, however, Harley is screwed. They should have either shut down Buell in 2002, OR given Buell a good engine in 2002, instead of having it limp along until it was shut down...
[1] Look at how crappy the one Harley line with a decent engine, the Vrod, sells for compared with the rest of Harley's line. Even a minor deviation, such as making the V-twin water cooled and actually able to revv, kills sales.
Lets see, $20,000 for a heavy, under powered, piece of crap that falls apart all the time vs. a $10,000 sportbike that all I have to do is change the oil. 
