Having owned a 2002 748E and ridden a 2001R extensively, I can conclude that for my type of riding (pleasure, a little commuting, not completely balls out, but good clean fun
) then the E was the better bike for me (S would have been better, but there you go)
The reasons for this, well, the E ran better at slower speeds, mate never really got his running sweet. Very lumpy low down and stalled everywhere. Now I know that given perseverance, this can be sorted so let's move on.
His clutch sounds like a bag of spanners. He's been back and forth to Ducati to get it sorted and they have finally told him where to stick it. It's eaten a set of plates in 1500miles. To me this is extreme and when it does wear, it sounds terrible, makes him look like he's running on kangaroo fuel and generally is a pain in the arse.
Personally I'm too much of a pleb to notice much difference between Ohlins and my Showa/Boge combination. I suspect that this is one of those things where a well set up standard bike would be comparable to a standard Ohlins equipped bike.
So in summary. For me, the law of diminishing returns did not warrant even considering an R. They are undoubtedly fantastic machines, very, very capable round a track and the last word in 748 cool, the ownership equation just doesn't figure for me.
At the end of the day you're the only one who can decide how you ride and which bike is for you.
Either way I'm sure you'll have fun choosing.
As for me I've moved on to a nice sedate 996BP