Sounds like a pretty sensible life goal to me. I see you left out the 2nd gen, I recently bought and lightly restored one of these but fell out of love with it quite quickly as while very pretty, it just felt kind of old. I started riding in the era of tube frames, crossply tyres and single piston callipers, things did get much better with the advent of alloy frames, decent forks, 17" wheels, and the 3rd gen onwards would fulfill my criteria for "modern (ish)".
Oddly enough I've never ridden either the 3rd or 4th gen, but have owned a VF750F, multiple VFR700/750 RC24s, two 5th gens, and I have ridden the 6th and 8th. I still think a gently upgraded 5th gen is the sweet spot.