The drum brake thing has never been much of an issue for me. I'm a downshifter. A quick downshift takes care of 98% of my needs. And, I find brakes harder to modulate (more likely to lock it up and skid) than a downshift. But, I don't think the automatics have the engine braking capabilities of the manual shifters.

 

And, the 400EX gets a new 38mm carb. Well, that's better than "bold new graphics".

 

A salesman at a Honda dealership told me that Honda changes things like linkage on the 400EX and never even sends anything out to the dealers to inform them. The only way they know is when they look up a part number and it's different. They didn't know about the carb increase.