Waynovetten, ta for your informed input. As you may guess, being a Harley owner, I see a lot on their forums about noise abroad. Understandably, this mostly because the average Harley owner will Stage 1 his bike and have open exhausts.
These are normally bloody loud and may attract the attention of an already annoyed copper abroad, having said that, they do concur that generally they'll leave you alone as long as you don't give them cause to stop you.
This apparently, does not apply to german police who allegedly are not so biker-friendly, I can't comment on that, not having ridden there.
The reason I came by the Akrapovic exhausts, is because I wanted a bit more sound from my bike without the raucus noise and insurance hikes of a stage 1 conversion, this the Akras gave me and I was able to fit them myself, so although they cost me �850 to buy, I probably saved over a thousand from the other route, plus thay are road legal anyway.
It was not a large leap of faith then, to buy them for the XT, but I was a little disappointed in how quiet they are with the db killers in, and can only seriously be run without them, this, by the way, is not the case on the sportster as they are just as loud with them in or out and have left the baffles in on it as it makes a deeper note.