The R7 became something of a collector's item because it was a limited-production model whose cousins were World Superbikes - in particular, Noriyuki Haga rode one.
Before the R7 was the Yamaha OW01, and also see Honda RC45 and its predecessor the RC30, and the Kawasaki ZX7RR, and the GSXR750 Limited. The degree to which these became "collectible" ... varied considerably.
In some cases, if you have one of those bikes, you can't do much with it nowadays in its original form. The RC30 was saddled with an 18" rear rim. You can no longer get good tires in appropriate sizes for 18" rims (a situation that I've had to deal with myself - only viable solution was $$$$$ different rims). The Barber Motorsports museum has an RC30 on display. If you happen to go there (highly recommended, by the way) take a look at that bike's tires. It hasn't been ridden in many years, is unsafe to ride at any speed with what's on there, and us mere mortals can't get decent tires to replace them with. (George Barber might be able to, though ... but he hasn't ...)
It obviously remains to be seen what will happen with Kawasaki's H2 and H2R. Unless something changes, they will not be race bikes in any premier well-regarded series. The H2R is likely to be rare, but without a racing pedigree, what happens to it? The H2R could very well go down in history as the pinnacle of outright production-bike power-to-weight-ratio and speed. On the other hand ... some people stashed away the first (1989-ish) ZX-10 for the same reason, and now it's just another tired old overweight bike with crap suspension. But on the other hand ... the H2R (not the H2) looks like it will have a massive step beyond anything else in production-bike power output, and they're doing it in an era of increasing environmental and traffic-safety and insurance pressures, which makes it more likely that the H2R won't be topped.
