Front trail braking has become more of a thing in racing since the advent of sophisticated electronic rider aids. But there's a big difference between "applying" the front brake once you've already entered the turn - ie. going from off to on while the bike is mid-corner - and never completey releasing the front brake through the trun once the initial hard braking is completed. I would never grab a handful of front brake mid-corner from nothing. The danger is dive. But if you've steadily released brake pressure but never fully let go, that's different. But again, todays electronics deal with dive and in theory cornering ABS will save you in a panic brake situation. But it goes without saying, that situation should never arise.
If I do find myself misjudging a bend and going on too hot (and it happens) I just lift my head, focus on the exit - which will cause you to instinctively put in more countersteer because the bike will go where you look - and use the rear brake to do any slowing that is required. If you don't panic, look up and look out of the bend, and scrub excess speed off gently with the rear, you have far more time than you think.
The reason I rear trail so much on my KTM is that it has long travel non-active suspension. It's also non-adjustable except via preset modes. These are very good but you can't dial in extra compression damping prior to commencing an aggressive ride. You get what you're given. Even so, it's very well damped in Sport mode and it's such an agile chassis with so much leverage from the wide bars and a centralised mass, it rewards braking deep into a turn and turning very late at the last moment. This puts a lot of load on the front tyre which makes the bike feel thoroughly glued down and inspires enormous confidence at acute lean angles - which is why the bike is so good at hustling sports bikes. But it you hold a lot of front brake right up to the instant you tip the bike in without having been able to stiffen up the damping beforehand, when you release it the front suspension will rebound and unload the front tyre. This will cost you that confidence-inspiring glued down feeling but it will also cause the bike to understeer and unless you conciously add more counter-steer it is likely to run wide. This does not make for happy scratching. But, if you brush in just a whisker of rear brake as the front comes off that stops that rearward rebound and keeps the chassis settled and flat and doesn't slow the steering. You release it completely when you see the exit and dial in the gas again.
It should be said though, all this applies in bends which are taken while still on the power. On slower, very tight turns when the power is shut off, the tried and tested slow in, fast out maxim still rules.
I have to say that i'm impressed with your ability to describe everything that you are doing in the corner and why you're doing it.
I'm not sure I have that ability. Either because I haven't analysed closely enough as to what i'm doing or that, I don't know what i'm doing at all (lol...) and it's just is what it is. All subconscious.....what I call 'natural'.
I probably need to analyse and take more note as to what i'm doing. The basics of what i'm doing is there, but certainly not everything, as I think it changes, so much when the atmospheric conditions and road surfaces change.
One thing I do know, is that i've always preferred the cornering character of a torque'y bike than a rev'y one, because the engine braking is doing a lot for you both in entering and exiting the corner. So there's much less braking going on.
I also really like trail bikes more than sports bikes generally, riding the tight hilly roads. I can make so much more progress due the the longer suspension travel above and beyond the size of contact patch on the front tyre or the tautness of the chassis.
I can recall going out on a KTM RC8 for the first time on a road safety event hosted by the local Police as part of the 'Bike Safe' initiative.
Picture the scene.....there's me, getting my hands on an LC8 and all I want to do is get into the bikes natural flow state as quickly as possible, so everything is nice and smooth, but the event is in the city and i've got a Police rider behind me watching my every move. Accessing my 'safe' riding abilities. Traffic lights galore, Saturday afternoon traffic....not the best situation to be test riding an LC8.
I remember the only thing he was not happy about, and that was the fact that I was riding with only one (or two) finger(s) over the front brake. I told him that due to the traffic and general low speed riding, coupled with the bike having more stopping power than the bike I arrived on, I was trying to make sure that I had some continual cover over the front brake while still having a good grip of the low handlebars. He really wasn't in the mood to listen to my reasoning and was almost insistent that I used all my fingers over the front brake........Neither of us were happy on that little escapade.....Lol...
(throttle must have stuck of something..) that I was doing substantially in excess of the permitted speed limit 
