I do agree with what you said, but only for a track, or serious business car. For a daily driven, A to B, fun to drive vehicle- these dohc vtecs with their respective trans are just fine. That's why I said to the OP, in my earlier post, that they ARE infact daily driven motors.
And again, about your definition of fast, I do think the same. These motors are much over hyped by Honda boys all over the world. But when you consider Pakistan; with all our 660cc JDMs and D15B 95 Civic sports cars and ultimate hypercar 'Reborn'... it's not hard to think why a dohc vtec driver must feel like a fighter pilot.
About Hs' reliability, IMO H tend to have a spun bearing, bent/broken rod, shot rings, valve float etc more than F20b... or it could be just me. And yes Hs can very well be rebuilt, but getting FRM sleeves won't be much fun in Pakistan.
About H23, people build and rev them to 8500 rpms with no problems. Above that even H22 would suffer. But yes, H22 may rev better coz of shorter stroke- plus bluetop doesn't have oil squirters either.