After the last long ride on my Gen7, I've "caught up" with all those on this list that realize the suspension needs work to handle any sport riding. Been doing the research on front and rear mods, but hadn't considered rebuilding/revalving the rear, that is until Jamie Daugherty at JMr said he could make the stock shock work quite well, for a fraction of the cost of an aftermarket shock. I'm a bit skeptical.
i went Ohlins....unbelievably good....saving up to send the forks to Jamie ......i don't think the quality of the Showa shock is the problem, Honda has always made their suspensions "cushy".....they don't like the word "harsh"
I cannot personally attest to the work that Jamie does for a VFR 1200 shock, but I can attest to the magic that he can work on a 5th Gen fork. He also tweeked my Traxxion Dynamics forks on my 6th gen (bought secondhand and not quite right for me). The guy knows his stuff.
I've had both of my VFRs suspensions done by Jamie Daugherty (BTW, it's DMr) and I'm very happy with the results. The only bummer is having to send components back to Indiana. For the forks I sent last year, I used a Pelican rifle case to ship them back. After seeing a couple of YouTube videos and seeing how some packages are treated first hand by UPs/FedEx/USPS, I wasn't taking any chances!
For the money, your ROI with DMr is hard to beat, of course there are other options locally I'm sure, but when I decided to go with DMr, I did my research and I could not find anything negative about Jamie's work or customer service.
Cheers! BTW, the rear shock he rebuilt for my 6 Gen was a stock Honda shock off of an ABS model VFR, so like mentioned above, there is nothing wrong with Showa per se, it's all about the valving and spring rates that make up the suspension quality.
Haven't spoken to Jamie in about a year or so. He knows suspension however at that time he had not yet had the opportunity to have hands on experience wiyh actual 1200 components. Give him a shout and see where he is at now..