I'm not sure of your background, so I don't want to be insulting - have you ridden a bike that has the wheels upgraded to something lighter and/or more mass centralized? The difference in handling is usually described as "amazing" and "the best performance upgrade I made, regardless of price."
Because of the reduced gyroscopic effect, the lighter front weight allows much easier side/side transitions preventing rider fatigue, or conversely - with the same rider input, much faster transitions. The lighter rear wheel increases acceleration numbers significantly - on my 94 900SS (which had boat anchors for wheels) it was about the equivalent of 3 or more teeth on the rear sprocket, allowing me to adjust final gearing to regain some top end speed without losing acceleration performance elsewhere. On both ends, the lighter weight needs less suspension compression/rebound leading to a much nicer and more compliant ride.
New high end forged aluminum wheels will run in the range of $3000 USD. It's not uncommon to find used OEM forged aluminum wheels (maybe slightly heavier than the top end race wheels, but still saving you several pounds of rotating mass over the low grade wheels on our bikes) in the $900 to $1200 range. The real treat, if you have the ways and means, is a pair of BST Carbon Fiber wheels, almost never sold used and going for around $4000 new.
On my '94 900SS I found a pair of Marchesini Kompe forged aluminum wheels for sale used off of a track bike being parted out. I have the numbers somewhere, but I think it came out to removing 6 lbs off the front wheel and almost 10 lbs off the rear. I got even luckier that they were anodized gold and kept the same basic color aesthetic on the bike.