Alex, you can't compare Harley's with Ducati's !!! It's like putting a 4 wheel drive truck with a lift kit and big tires on a road course.
Ducati's are way kewl, and way fast, no doubt about it. A friend of mine who owns a bike shop took one in on trade, and was nice enough to let me take it out and test hammer it. But, being the geezer with the high mileaged and often abused bod I have left, a quick test cruise was about as far as I could ride the thing. Old Blue with the stretched frame, raked neck, springer front was definitely the way to cruise down the highway. and the ol pan/shovel motor worked quite well, too. Would I take it to the Isle of Man TT and race it??? No way.
I used to ride very hard and very fast. Getting to geezer status kinda changed that. Reactions are slower, vision is poor, and the "need for speed' has been tempered when on two wheels.
Go fast while you can, Alex. Then enjoy the cruizin later.
Oh yeah, and Matt, lots of us don't buy new Harley's. We choose to build our own. Evo's are decent motors, but I prefer the pan/shovel set up for nostalgia. If I wanna go fast, guess I would start with a twin cam.