It does seem to vary from bike to bike,my experience has been,
first SS not good
second SS(ie) OK
S4 terrible
Multistrada OK
888 good:D

My bike is fine when the engine is not running and I haven’t heard of any problems locating neutral when bikes are not running?
When its running and hot from a good thrashing it is a Bas***d and you do get the feeling that the leaver is pulled threw to first or up to second, goes straight in to neutral if you kill the engine.
Goes in to neutral rolling up to lights before stopping so I think its bit of clutch drag.
You feel like a right knob tapping up and down so just kill the motor at the pub and then stick it neutral, don’t forget though.
Better get on it before you hit the go button or you will watch it chug on to the floor in a heap,
Sometimes there are three or four of us looking for neutral, all part of the character you know.
:cool::cool::cool:

In my experience Ducati gearboxes are pretty good.My 996 was a pig to find neutral when the engine was new,but got easier as the milage piled on.:)
It sounds like you may have a slight clutch problem,(as someone else mentioned).It could be the plates or the basket worn ,or maybe the clutch simply needs bleeding.

It did seem a lot worse when the bike was hot from being in traffic, and when the engine was running, so it looks like mine is just one of the dodgier ones.

Will take it round to my local shop and get them to check over all the clutch parts and bleed the system etc... and see how it goes then. They're pretty good with fault finding so should be able to tell me if its anything more major like a problem with the gearbox.

Thanks everyone for putting my mind at ease though - thought I might have bought a lemon for a minute !

Just had another thought re ericthereds post - if we could find a box of neutrals ( maybe left over in the Duc factory - the ones they forgot to put in our bikes ! ) left over we could flog them on Ebay and make a fortune !:bouncy:

Couple of other things to check then, might sound obvious but has it got any oil in it, and if it’s had a set of rear sets on the linkage might not have been set back up properly and I think that can effect gear selection.