cycleranger
Generally Ok.
After taking a peak under the gaiters of my Honda CB750 and seeing the total destruction of the forks from the trapped moisture, I cut them off. I had to replace the forks, they were so bad, so I installed some forks from a Yamaha XS650 along with the 64 spoke wheel, disk, caliper and fender.
Thankfully, the forks on my K5 only rusted where they weren't covered by gaiters.
This is before I cleaned them up and reused them, and installed new gaiters.
I also added XR gaiters when I restored my XL250s.
Personally, I like gaiter look, but I appreciate the bare looks as well.