after so many different suggestions and can see you are still fond of slightly upright seating position 250cc bike ( e.g: KTM Adventure 250 and Vesys X-250 ). Perhaps you can follow your heart. Knowing your buying patents ( eg: car you own ) if you will change / upgrade motorcycle quite often then I would suggest you to go for 2nd hand bike first. Japanese 2nd hand bike won't have much of issue, just need to check whether the chassis / frame, wiring, engine, gearbox, & etc in good running condition.

It will safe you a lots of money and also understand what you want is what you need.

me 2 cents.

Is better padding for the rear seat the only mod I can make? Might be a stupid question, but are there aftermarket seats that are larger?