Like most folks I've owned at few of each brand of bikes and each has their own "quirks". The newer bikes today are so "sophisticated" electronically that they hardly fail unless you are "modding" them and making them do something more than they are designed to do.
My stock Honda 1300R VTX was probably the most bulletproof for a modern cruiser and i'm up in the air about which of the smaller ones I would favor... I owned a Yamaha WR250X supermoto, a super fun little bike, but this little Kawasaki 300 Ninja is making me think that its not really the Companies, but the designs that make the bikes what they are.
I don't know, but the fuel injected, water cooled, low maintenance of todays bikes are what make me want to keep updating each model. Of course with all the added stuff that can fail (fuel pumps, injectors, ecu's) can make a new owner go nutz because of the complicity of the systems.
I'm thinking KISS (keep it simple stupid) would be the best for any engineering team to go by, but with that comes the maintenance issues, which is why I like the savage, it is simple in design, but not maintenance free.
I've put 5,000 miles on my new little kawi, but it isn't due a major maintenance check until 8,000, and i'm hearing from most owners that its just a valve clearance check and most don't need adjusting.
So maybe todays bikes might be better engineered, but not better overall maintenance wise for the owners, unless you are a certified motorcycle mechanic that understands electronic fuel injection and can "retune" a bike that has an ECU failure.
But my best ever rock-solid bike? It wasn't a "big four", It was my Briggs and ScrapIron Sears minibike I had when I was young!! Even I could work on it at 10 years old!!