Ducati is producing some very civilized bikes these days. In a sense, they've lost a bit of edginess, and that wonderful dry clutch rattle is gone....but then so is left hand clutch cramp, misery beyond words in stop and go traffic, and my old Ducati ST4 is the only bike I've had which truly tried to kill me - big highside, threw me up and onto the highway, while the bike dove for soft grass and came out far less injured than I did (ATGATT reduced the number of broken bones and I had zero road rash).
The Panigale requires one to be on top of things, to be mentally proactive - it is by no means ever a passive riding experience. This, btw, is where BMW excels. Say you just didn't feel like riding hard and just wanted to cruise home at the speed limit. The S1000RR simply complies, in comfort no less.
This is, of course, to Ducatisti, the reason why we ride these bikes.
What makes modern Ducatis hardly "vicious" is if you're mentally off in la-la-land for a moment, it no longer punishes you. It might jerk or lurch in displeasure that you're not giving her your utmost attention, but that's really about it.
