It was about $700 for mine as I recall, but everything was within spec. I have known people who put 100K hard miles on these things and never did any valve checks. These bikes are very well engineered.
So, back to Vance's question. With the 6th gen, you get a more modern bike and finding aftermarket bits is easier. You also have more color choices (6th: red,white,silver,black, RWB, versus red or yellow for the 5th gen). The 6th gen also had ABS as an option. Looks are subjective, of course, but I greatly prefer the more angular look of the 6th gen, especially on the back end.
For me, the perfect 750/800 VFR would be the 6th gen body/frame/suspension, a 5th gen motor, and the weight of the 2nd gen. The undertail exhaust of the 6th gen looks very clean and shows off the single-sided swingarm (as well as being less of a burn hazard for passengers). You really can't go wrong with any of them. The heart of the VFR's appeal is the V4 engine. The smooth power delivery is what people love about them. They have good torque on the low end without sacrificing high-revving power up top. This makes them deceptively fast if you are used to the top-end rush of a similar displacement inline 4. They just pull and pull and pull, and all of a sudden you realize that you are doing your-bike-gets-impounded speeds. The first time you accelerate one though a corner, you'll understand the appeal of the V4.
And then there is that V4 sound (video courtesy of Steve Farson; 6th gen first and then two 5th gens; you can hear the whine of the cam gears on the latter two):
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~terrell/bikes/vfrflyby.wmv