Because of the Telelever, braking on a bumpy road is painless. It's a different kind of power than the CB-1 has. The GS, by comparison, is a big, strong Clydesdale. This bike goes. Mym brother would say it has some serious low-end grunt.
People talk about axle tramp and shaft jacking that BMWs do because they're shaft-driven.
I'm afraid I don't know what they're talking about. I can't feel those effects. As for reliability, I've only had my GS for 3000 miles. My overall impression is that it's a tightly engineered elegant machine which, if you follow the required maintenance, will behave itself very well. It's more refined and finicky than its R100GS predecessor, so it will probably not handle the kind of abuse that those bikes deal with.