I commuted on a 2001 VFR800 from January to July of this year, every day rain or shine. I sold it in July and went to a CB500X as my primary with an FZ-07 as a backup. Previous commuters include a CBR600F4i, CBR600RR, DRZ400SM, and Ninja 250.
My review of the VFR is as follows:
The VFR got too hot in warmer weather, like really really hot in slow traffic. The bike didn't overheat, but it was making me overheat. It felt slower accelerating under 9k RPM than even the F4i and it was geared so insanely high I would have to drop 3-4 gears to make a pass. I obviously did not play around with gearing while I owned it, so that would be a possibility. You could also just ride around in a lower gear. As it sat with stock gearing I do not agree with having power all over, it felt just like an inline 4 to me.
It felt just about the same in ergonomics as the F4i, something I didn't enjoy for long periods of time. It also felt like a heavy pig, like nearly impossible to load into a truck alone. When lane splitting at slow speeds the front end felt heavy and had horrible tracking over cracks. That bothered me a lot, it made lane splitting stressful.
On the plus side, the bike ran great and as I said, never over heated. I ran heated grips and an electric jacket with the only electrical issue being the ground cable bolt coming loose (probably my fault). It's the best bike I've ever owned for cruising at 80mph+, it really felt at home at a good clip and not buzzy at all. I also really liked the brakes, I felt the linked system did a great job and the brakes had fantastic stopping power for such a heavy bike.
