Everyone seems to be agreeing that we should have what we want, so I'm gonna throw you an alternative thought :
There is some useful, if rather turgid, reading to be had at
http://www.roadscodes.org/ which are the industries own guidelines. In particular looking for surface related issues in the Risk and Liability section and also the Best practice for surfacing. This is what the industry is supposed to work to.
There is also an interesting article at
http://www.network.mag-uk.org/june05p9.html and this gets straight to the point.
Back in 98/99/2000 I did a load of work for the HA (writing management information systems...in particular, project management and monitoring). Surfaces are chosen on the basis of economy, durability, noise and safety at the speed limit set for that road. As mentioned before the safety stats for surfaces are based on tests involving four wheeled vehicles, not two. Negative textured surfaces score well on the economy, durablity and noise fronts....on the safety front it's obviously not so safe. When I was working for HA they loved the stuff....it's not the cheapest stuff to prepare, but it's easy to lay and requires less road preperation so it's cheaper overall.
I had a quick chat with a policeman friend of mine and i was surprised at how little sympathy he showed. His position pretty much echo'd the comment made earlier that if bikers want to ride fast they should do so at a track day...otherwise, tough s**t.
In this chat I had my mate accused me of driving too fast/of being a fast driver. To put this in some perspective, on the recent run down to Hereford, Stan shot off down the B4521 (quite a windy road) and must have made 3-5 minutes on me before we reached the main road over a 15 mile run. If I'm a fast driver (which I doubt compared to most of the people on this forum), what does that make Stan?
I suspect some of you think you're not driving that fast when actually you are...the bird is a very balanced and friendly bike to drive fast, but is it safe to constantly drive it to it's limits?
I can't see this surface going away or being modified. I suspect that we're gonna have to slow down.
Cheers...P