mickey, each of the NT1100 video reviews I've seen from the launch in Scotland noted that the side cases will not hold a full-face helmet. Keep in mind, it's not as if these guys all called me up before shooting their reviews to ask me, "Hey, what do YOU want to know about this bike?"
Nope, they checked for it and made note of it entirely on their own.
When the Yamaha Tracer first came out, there was all sorts of talk on their message board on this very subject, to the extent that people started looking into whether the FJR's bags would fit on the Tracer.
Clearly, I am not alone in this desire. Not by a long shot. It's a thing. Believe it or not, it really is a thing, especially if you have expensive gear and you habitually park your bike on the streets of a major city, or outside in damp conditions.
Let's say I ride to Muir Woods, or Tahoe. When I arrive, I want to peel off my riding suit, boots, gloves, and helmet. I want to throw on hiking gear. I'm going to be gone for a few hours. The helmet is roughly $800. The riding suit is about $1,500. The boots are $250, and the gloves are $175. There might also be some heated gear, so add another few hundred bucks. Now double all of this if there's a passenger, and toss in some helmet-to-helmet communications gizmos. I want to lock it all away, out of sight. Running a cable lock through all of this stuff and attaching it to the bike is an open invitation to thieves.
I go to a Giants game. My bike will sit there unattended until who knows when, depending on the length of the game and whatever I do afterward. It may be midnight by the time I get back to the bike. If I lock my gear to the bike, exposed, it may be gone, but it will definitely be wet. San Francisco fog. Jerks with drinks they want to trash. Drunks.
Soaked helmet liner. Wet gear. I have a two-hour ride home.
Lockable side bags. That's what all my dedicated sport-tourers offered. I could swing my leg over those bikes, because there was no top box.
If you go places and have expensive gear, or you buy something while you're out and about, you don't want to have to carry it all with you as you walk around, and you don't want to hang it off of your bike in plain sight, exposed to the elements and potential thieves.
This is not rocket science. It shouldn't require an explanation, any more than an explanation is needed as to why your car has a lockable trunk. Designers of sport-touring motorcycles know this. It's why their side bags for their larger, dedicated sport-tourers are nearly always capacious enough to swallow a full-face helmet. It's why Honda designed the hard bags on all their other sport-tourers to accept full-face helmets.
This is a no-brainer.
