I used to share your opinion, but hours of searching for no longer-made parts and obscure wrench sizes and other tools that often simply don't exist anymore cooled my enthusiasm somewhat (fixing 1960s camera lenses)
All the fasteners I have seen are standard metric sizes, what speciality tools are you referring to? The side cover screws can be stubborn but even a Philips #3 with an impact driver ($20.00 at the pawn shop) pops them right off. Conversion kits to standard allen head screws are cheap, on the order of $50.00 for the whole engine.
There is a special nut on the oil spinner but that's the only specialty tool I can think of on the bike until you start actually disassembling the whole thing and you don't even have to remove it to do an oil service. I guess the shock/steering head adjuster is a specialty tool? But that was included with the bike so not hard to find either.
Parts can be a bit harder but since these things were so popular it's a lot easier than any other bike from 1969. Also the aftermarket is huge if you don't care about staying totally stock.
To clarify, using three easy outs instead of the right tool is kind of like saying config files are flawed because they have to be edited. Tools are created for a job and it is up to us as engineers to use them properly.
i should really say the PO who stripped the engine bolts with a phillips head instead of a JIS driver made it kind of inevitable. 40 year old machines are interesting.
Most of the screws I have seen are trashed from people using screwdrivers instead of impact drivers. Even with the proper JIS bit the screws will still be ruined if you don't use an impact type tool. There's just no way to apply enough axial force to the fastener with a normal hand tool, even if the shape is correct.
That's what the impact driver is for. I didn't have to convert any bolts to metric, all those are already metric. Only the screws need to be converted.
