[burkbuilds]

You made a good choice for a first bike! You'll find that it handles well, drinks slowly and is a lot of fun to ride. It also doesn't seem to have any real mechanical problems. I've put over 10,000 miles on mine since last Summer and it's doing great! Lots of good advice on here about how to do your own maintenance and what pitfalls to watch out for. I don't think any of the bikes you were considering would have been a bad choice, I haven't really heard anything bad about any of them, but I really like my GZ! As far as big motors go, the only real difference is in the acceleration time. Once you reach cruising speed 55 mph is the same on any bike in my opinion. I've ridden bigger bikes and personally I wouldn't want to have anything bigger than about 750cc's. I wish they still made some bikes in the 350-500 range, but that seems to be a range that has disappeared from production at most companies.
Enjoy your riding, and if you haven't already done so, I highly recommend taking a weekend course in riding and safety.