You're talking about a "serious fork seal analysis", and then proposing that the way to form an accurate opinion about a theoretical fork seal design problem is to poll members on an online forum? How many seal failures have you counted on this forum? If you find fifty guys who say their fork seals leak, what conclusion are you going to draw, without knowing the number of Super Teneres are on the road that have never experienced a fork seal leak? If you believe it's a design flaw in the fork seal, then those numbers become really important. You had a seal failure; if I tell you I've ridden for 43,000 miles on my original seals, does that sway your opinion that there isn't a design flaw and you're just unlucky, or do you discount my experiences (and those of a lot of other riders on here) because confirmation bias is causing you to give the fork seal failures more weight in forming your opinion? Certainly, based on your post, you've already decided that there is a problem, and you're looking for confirmation of your conclusion.
I use seal savers because they seem like a decent solution to keeping grit and crap off the part of the tube that's the most vulnerable, and I used them on my V-Strom, but I never used them on any other bike I've owned, and I've never had a fork seal leak on any of them. The only conclusion I could draw from that info is that, yeah, maybe the seal savers help, and maybe they don't. And if fifty guys say their forks leaked, and there are 8000 Super Teneres out there that you have no idea if they've had a failure or not, about the only conclusion you can draw from that is "inconclusive". Fork seals are a wear item, after all; that's why they're made to be replaced if necessary. And it may just be the luck of the draw that some guys get that piece of grit or foreign matter on their fork tube at the right place and right time to cause a leak; that doesn't mean that the design is flawed.
