Could be that they always intended it to be a long distance tourer, but I think Bloor is cagier than that. He wanted to make a statement and he did, both in form and function. Since I gather the original RIII sold decently (not sure what the numbers are but there seems to be a lot of them out there) they took it to the next level, which in this case meant take the power down a level and the features up a level.
