The plus 1 inch seat makes a huge difference.
I can imagine. I've been reading up on the tall rider topic as well, and that pops up a lot. Seems the Corbin seat also helps a little, in not allowing you to slide forward so much. I'd try to get away with NOT lowering the pegs if possible, to avoid scraping sooner (if I even lean that far, but better to not have to worry about it). So while the 900 gives a little more leg room, it seems the trade between the two is agility vs. power. The wife (who is looking at her own bike in the Vulcan S) and I would mostly be doing rural roads versus a ton of city driving, so not sure which of the two would win out on that--the inverted fork of the 900 seems like it would lend itself better to dealing with that, though if the 650 is the more agile, if you're not hitting anything, does the suspension matter as much? With that said, I know I'll eventually be riding to work, and that would involve some Interstate and city driving, but not enough to make it the primary role of the bike. All these things are what led me to both the 650 and the 900, due to their "all-around-pretty-good-at-everything" reputation.