I owned a first gen SV at one time as well. The plethora of welds made it look great sure.
The 2nd gen was an improvement but it also was cheaper to make.
The thing is that both 650's were very popular in sales, but the TL-S and then the R were failures due to a lawsuit in England I believe where they blamed the tank slapper on the rotary shock etc etc thereby killing the TL's.
However the TL/R was at that time going to fight and beat the unstoppable 996/998 Ducatis. The days before the RC51 - it was the RC51 of Suzuki.
TL-R heads on a SV1000 would deliver much of its lost power. Injectors, maps and a few other nicnac's complete the rest.
The TL motors weren't just larger SV motors. They were built a lot better. For example, SV650 was a simple cam chain drive, the TL had a 2 stage, a chain to the cyl wall, then a gear drive to the cams. Makes it 100 times easier to take it off to do a valve adjustment.
The TL-R IMHO represents what the SV1000 should have been, and I like the perimeter frame a bit more than a vacuum formed trellis, which I like more than a welded trellis. I must admit though, you polish a welded trellis frame and it shoots to the top of the list, eye candy X 1000.