Still back in the 80s I think(?) Honda came out with a 650 or 750, or something of that size & not their 90cc Trail Bike, with a shift to a higher or lower gearing giving the bike something like 10 speeds. It sold like rotten eggs so they scratched it.
After all Honda was always fooling around with things like clutchless shifting, to anti-skid wheels, to even push-button gear changing in '89 & even tried it out on their few special racing ATVs. Then it looked as if it would be on their Cruisers & possibly the sportbikes later.
Yet in 90 or 99 Duke was going to introduce the push button shifting to most of their bikes ONLY it was being used by their factory road racers & started to give them problems. They went back to normal shifting & this did not come about on the sportbikes.
So strange things can come about in the yrs & I expect the push button shifting to be here very soon.