I know fuel pumps have been covered extensively but....

[Shordy]

I think it depends on the colour of your bike.
That might sound strange, but wait.......
My bike is white in colour and the underlying plastic is black.
Any scratch, scrape or chip shows up easily.
If you have a dark coloured bike, maybe it's not so important how much care is taken to remove the fairings.
I think the problem with the design is that its almost impossible to avoid scratching the fairings during the removal process..

[Batfink]

+1 for Mozzie

I would rather a bit more complicated assembly then 100 friggin ugly screws over each side panel. I will be making the bike totally naked before summer gets here so I can clean and add some mods to various parts of bike. Last side panel removal was about 10 minutes longer than mozzie's but I put that now to the nervousness of playing with a brand new bike LOL

I use silicon spray to help the plugs find there home in the rubber grommets (works like KY lol)

Try BRIGHT YELLOW panels.. it seems to make any dark mark seem 15 times bigger than what it is PLUS you can't just use a yellow to repair, needs a special base coat (lucky me)

[Maj]

get some masking tape and pre mask the areas that can get scratched,

[mozzie26]

When I got the Gen2 I had the fairing of half a dozen times in the first 3 months for different reasons- servicing, Akra 4-1 install, radiator replacement after stone damage, panel replacement after dropping bike in Pitstop Pete's gravel driveway etc
I place a packing blanket or carpet under the bike when removing panels so they don't drag across the concrete floor.