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I am not sure what the worry is about the loss of desmodromic on the new V4 Multistrada. Ducati have always made non desmo bikes, their first and probably biggest seller after all was a push rod (or rather pull rod). The beautiful singles 250 and 350 were offered with or without desmo as were some of the iconic bevels 750 /900 vee twins.
The Pantah, and its later developments leading up to the Monster air cooled V twins were desmo but the reality was that the engines were so designed not to rev too high and desmo valves were probably not really necessary as valve springs are perfectly capable of handling up to 12000 revs. Although desmo valves are a really elegant engineering solution with much lower friction and the cam timing permitted by desmo configuration gives them good torque and fuel economy and a lovely deep flat boom in the exhaust, all rather ruined by driving them by toothed belts which can break.
Desmodromic valve gear only really comes into its own above those revs with the ability to have longer cam overlaps and closer valve clash tolerances.
Desmo will survive in Ducati because it works in racing. Ducati have consistently had the fastest bike in MotoGP since they joined the premier class. Who could ever forget Stoner stomping on the opposition whenever there was a straight?
Most of the other MotoGP bikes rely on compressed nitrogen cylinders to close their valves. I am surprised Ducati have not complained concerning the fuel limit as those bikes will not run without it and the compressed nitrogen is just an additional fuel (closing 16 valves at 16000 rpm for 45 minutes must be worth a litre of petrol).
Non desmo on a Multistrada V4 is arguably a very sensible decision, one of the biggest negative factors on purchasing a Ducati is probably the cost of ownership, valve clearance setting at c£1000 every 15000 miles is a big hit (6.6p a mile).
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