Sportbikes are lower, but they're not typical. Sportbikes sales trended way down over the past decade, with models being discontinued entirely in some regions. Current sporty-style bikes are generally more upright seating and share engines and platforms with non-sport models. Dual sport/off road bikes have trended upwards, even for riders who never go off pavement, because they're cheap to run and very practical as general purpose motorcycles. More recently, there's been a trend towards large touring bikes as well.
Somewhat yeah, the GS is a tall bike for sure. I have a zrx1200 and I'm still a ton taller than when I am in the miata. Miata is probably one of the lowest riding vehicles you can get and headlights are a problem at night shining in my eyes, where on the motorcycle it is not an issue.
Not really. Outside of a few groups at places like Virginia Tech, motorcycle safety studies don't get much funding. Too niche.
You can use insurance rates as a loose proxy- sportbikes are between one and three orders of magnitude more expensive to insure than adventure bikes, touring bikes or cruisers. But I suspect that has more to do with the average age of the riders.
And bike power. Sportsbikes are often road-legal versions of actual racing bikes, with all that it entails. If a third of cars on the road were tuned-down Ferraris and McLarens, you bet they'd crash left right and center.
Yeah, bike power has increased significantly. Iirc the age distribution of fatal crashes is double peaked, with one peak in the 20s from young riders who don’t know what they’re doing yet, and another in the late 40s or so from older riders who haven’t ridden in 20 years but still think they know what they’re doing. The skills needed to handle a modern 600cc sports bike with 160+ hp are on another level compared to the skills needed for a 600cc sports bike from the 90s with 110hp.
Yeah... I've gotten quotes with that kind of spread between "old man" bikes and very fast sport bikes. IIRC if you buy a cruiser or certain ADVs the insurance company expects to never hear from you with a claim, while certain sport bikes, the insurance expects you to total it within 18 months.