Nothing really wrong with a 2002, including mine, and I'm the original owner. Almost all VFRs will eat their stator eventually, and a 2002 can be upgraded to a 2003+ stator and flywheel easily...which is pretty much the only option anyway. As for updates, the only thing that significantly changed was the mapping of the VTEC transition and not much else, but a lot of us never had problems with the 2002-2005 in terms of VTEC transition. If that's one of the few available somewhere, I'd go for it and be prepared for the things you will have to fix on any VFR. That mostly means the electrical stuff anyway.
Not sure what OP is looking at, but the VFR doesn't have valve timing advance. The RBR can control ignition timing in a pretty wide range on the 6th gen. Would definitely not buy one of these to be the fastest, but they are among the smoothest "all day long, real world fast" bikes out there. RBR is pretty sweet. Even better with a catless exhaust.
VTEC in cars is completely different; VTEC on the VFRs is just switching between two and four valve operation.