Much as I love Ducatis I suggest you try a used Sprint RS. I have one (albeit for sale) and i have to say that it is by far the best road bike I have ever owned...better than my VFR750 was by some margin.
Some bikes are faster, some handle better but, as a package it is very hard to beat. It handles well, has an amazingly grunty engine, it's fast, economical, reliable and has low servicing requrements. I paid £5600 for it new in 2003 - they're not made any longer but can be picked up cheap used and there's still some languishing new in dealers.
It will top 160, it will do 60mpg at 80mph, I can get my knee down on it, it's comfortable for 600 miles in the saddle in a day, will do nearly 200 miles on a tank of fuel, it will just about slay anything in a roll-on from 60-120mph and has no trouble staying with the latest sportsbike tackle on most roads. Max torque is about 70 ft-lbs at 5200rpm and when chipped with the Triumph pipe it's delivering a little over 110bhp at 9000rpm.
The suspension is a little crude but, that's nothing that can't be sorted by Maxton et al.
I'm very impressed with it and can't see anything that would do it all better.
[Edited on 26-1-2006 by twpd]