Just out of curiosity, how hot will the muffler get? I just realized that my passenger peg is literally right on top of the muffler, and anyone sitting there will probably have his/her right shoe touching the muffler. I know they get pretty darn hot, but is it hot enough to do damage to a shoe and foot?

The stock exhaust WILL melt shoes and burn you. It wouldn't be good to touch after the bike has been run...

A carbon fiber exhaust can will not get hot, just mildly warm, the headers and mid pipe however, will continue to get hot.

Yeah, sometimes the heel of my shoe hits the pipe just before it goes into the muffler and there are little bits of melted rubber stuck to it.

The temp of the exhaust as it's leaving the head is somewhere in the 1500 F neighborhood, at least the plane that I fly usually runs arroud 1450F but that's rich of peak and at 2600RPM and full throttle. So the GS should probally be quite a bit less than that when cruising, but probally quite a bit higher than that at full throttle and high RPM

The stock mufflers have a heat shield on them don't they? I don''t think the top of the stock muffler will melt your shoes, but I'm not buying your girlfriend a new pair if i"m wrong! 

All I know is that the ONE time I wore shorts on the GS, I was backing the bike up, and ran my calf into the exhaust. Nasty burns.

Hmm, you folks running in stop/go traffic or something ?
I have a V&H, and it's very warm (not painfull) to the touch while in traffic, and within a minute (literally) of parking it's cooled considerably.

Maybe I'm lucky enough to avoid traffic, and the air cools it ?

Maybe I've lost some heat sense in my hands after years of machining/grinding/heat treating steel ?

Dunno.

Stock exhaust will get very hot, the yoshi tri oval that boss500 has on his would get warm even after 4 hour rides, you could touch it and not get burned same with my wilyco exhaust i had on my 500.

I ride with a passenger a lot and her shoes have never melted...   

I wouldn't suggest touching it with bare skin though.

Pipe is hot as hell!
Wilyeco can is not, u can touch it...its just real warm never blazen hot