[ZDan]

There is no reason to fear most carbureted motorcycles. Japanese ones, anyway... I've had my '00 SV650 forever, never any issues. Stock it is fine, if/when you mod it's easy to rejet. I did the snorkelectomy mod and got aftermarket dual exhaust and rejetted it myself with ~$10 worth of parts.

Carbed bikes I've owned over the years: '86 Radian, '75 CB550F, SV650, FZR400. I've had exactly ONE carburetor issue: last year at the track I suddenly lost a lot of power, like I was down a cylinder. I thought it was ignition related, but turns out some previous owner had taken the carbs apart and thought it was a good idea to use RTV everywhere when putting them back together. It had a slug of rtv in the main jet on #4. DOH!

Other than that, no carburetor issues whatsoever over 30 years of riding.

But then 99% of my riding has been near sea level. If you do a lot of riding at varying altitude, then fuel injection is probably a good idea.