Cold and warm cranking are the same now. Only the warm "engage, disengage, engage, graunch, whizzz" remains. The graunch isn't like oh gosh that sounds nasty, just the kind of thing I hear in old cars notorious for starter solenoid problems. As I have mentioned, cold starting is seemingly no problem.
I doubt it is an oil problem either, so you can take your oil mutants elsewhere 😄 This bike has been running Castrol Power 1 4T 5W40 since birth. The bike was owned since new by my very fussy and highly trained motorcycle mechanic V4 nut friend. Covid, lockdowns/opportunity and other private reasons have prevented it from being in his more than capable hands.
I have opportunity to take to another great mechanic, would rather not. If it is potentially something I can take care of, I explore this first.
Regarding servicing the starter, I will look up what that entails. I am told, by a few sources that the mechanism of these starters is not exactly for the uninitiated. That would be me, so I hope to know with some inspection what things look like.
On a different positive note, I have discovered that when the fork seals were done, I didn't return the fork leg preload settings to where they were set. After a few rides (with time for ample cool down so as to allow starting again hahaha) it seems the slow speed (below 80kmh) "steer or not steer and then drop into a corner" problem is also on its way to fixed. Fancy that!