Just to be a bit controversial, I think there are a few cases where fake carbon is perfectly fine.
In general, I would avoid it for all the reasons that most would quote but I think there are exceptions.
For example, I know of one monster (which shall remain nameless) which was fitted with a carbon airbox lid.
This created a mismatch with the main/lower airbox section and so this was dipped in looky-likey carbon.
The result looks a lot better than it did before.
Now, one could have spent an absolute fortune on replacing the lower section with a genuine carbon fibre item but what would this really have achieved ?
The weight loss would have been relatively insignificant and so the main object of the exercise was to unify the cosmetic appearance .. which the dipping achieved.
In fact to my mind, you could argue that the requirement for a "real" carbon airbox in this case would have amounted to admitting that you were prepared to spend silly money in order to achieve very little tangible benefit ... which is kinda uncool in its own way, is it not ?
Horses for courses, in my opinion.
Though in the case of the carbon headlamp shell, I reckon the black ring would look fine anyway, so no need to dip there really.
I still fancy mine in a micro-paisley though. ....
