Uniflow have you got any close up pics of that engine, Iv never seen a rotary valve smoker before, how does it work? I love the older bikes for reasons like this, they just used to have so many cool, totally different ideas on them but now you can take a look at any of the big motocross brands adult bikes and they're all the same (pretty much).
I read a book about John Britain a few years ago and that guy built some amazing bikes, anyone who is even slightly into the design of bikes should look at the bikes he made.
I don't see where the engineers of today get all this following the crowd behaviour from, if any of them raced the bikes that they make they'd know that you can't pass someone by following them. TM shouldn't be making updated blue Honda cr`s, a company of that size should be instead just going out and finding new ways of doing things.
Look at what Yamaha did when they introduced the monoshock, or look at how John Britain`s bikes did with their crazy suspension setup.