Keeping it simple.
HP = rate of work
Torque = Strength of that work
A reasonable way to look at it. But as pulleys give us mechanical advantage, gears do the same. With a pulley, one can lift weight easier, but it comes at the expense of distance. Gears swap torque for rotational speed. What people aren't thinking thru is that the torque figure they see on a spec sheet is NOT the torque at their rear wheel.
Consider this, someone tells you an engine makes 100 ft*lbs of torque. What does that tell you about it? It tells me exactly nothing.
Now, if they give me the engine's power curve plotted against the engine's rpm, I know the torque values everywhere across the rpm band. I have no need to know them, but it's a calculation any 3rd grader could do.
Now, say I have two engines like the one you prefer and the one you don't. Say the Tiger makes 100 ft*lbs at 4300 rpm. That means the engine at 4300 rpm is producing 81 hp:
Power = (torque * rpm)/5252 = 81 hp
With only a couple points listed, we can't know what's going on with the engines everywhere else, but for the sake of argument, let's say the ST only makes 75 ft*lbs at 4300 rpm. That means the engine at 4300 rpm (using the same calculation above) is producing 61 hp.
Well, whaddya know? Turns out, the engine with the most torque is making the most power. So instead of pretending these are two different and useful things, we could simplify our lives by just noting that Tiger engines make more power at low rpm than ST engines? Why get mystical and pretend that "power only occurs at top speed" or "we ride the torque?"
What if we do the converse? Let's say the ST only makes 100 ft*lbs at 7500 rpm. That means its engine at 7500 rpm is producing 143 hp.
And say the Tiger's engine makes 75 ft*lbs at 7500 rpm. That means its engine at 7500 rpm is producing 107 hp.
Again, the engine with the most torque is the one making the most power. No way around it.
Obviously, engines make power across whatever rpm range they are capable of running. But again, for the sake of argument, let's say these two engines work like electric drill and either run at 4300 rpm or 7500 rpm. Let's calculate the avg power the engines are capable of producing across their rev ranges.
Tiger = (81 + 107)/2 = 94 hp
ST = (61 + 143)/2 = 102 hp
So truth be told, on a performance benchmark, the ST is the superior engine. And geared to take advantage of that power, the ST will prance away from a Tiger.
Therein lies the problem. Most of us aren't machines just blasting up and down thru the rpm range. We are humans and have likes and dislikes. I think that many of us twin types prefer engines that *feel* relaxed. I could ride the Tiger at 4300 and get my 81 hp in 4th gear or I could ride the ST in third gear at say 5500 rpm where it made the same 81 hp and would accelerate at approximately the same speed as the Tiger in a roll on, but I don't want to ride the ST like that because it's engine just feels too busy there. Consequently, I'd trade off some acceleration for some comfort.
In any event, the point I'm trying to get across is that engines make power. It's converted to torque/speed at the rear wheel via gears.
Engine torque values provide no information that the power values don't already give you. Unless you're in the business of manufacturing gear boxes, engine torque is superfluous information.