They have their place, but as I said in an earlier post, they're horrible as commuters. The full fairing with lowers provides excellent protection at highway speeds, and makes for a wonderful ride. However, at lower speeds, the added weight makes them cumbersome, and the lack of airflow is suffocating in hot climates.
As for reliability, you're dead on. Nothing is more reliable than a GW. Those things have a duty cycle of over 300,000 miles now. The duty cycle of the Harley Twincam is an easy 100,000 which is absolutely nothing to sneeze at, but nothing lasts like the 4 and now the 6 cyl wings.
Oh, I don't know about that. I commuted 40 miles into downtown Boston for a number of years on the Wing and and found it more enjoyable than the the same commute on my cruiser.
I gotta ask; have you actually ridden a six cylinder 'Wing?