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Willy Dog, the chain and both sprockets act as a system and that's how you should treat them. A worn chain will have more distance from pin to pin so instead of putting even pressure on all the sprocket teeth you get a situation where all the force is being carried by fewer and fewer teeth. It might not look like the teeth are wearing but they are. If you just replace the chain because the sprockets look so good you are actually shortening the life of the new chain. As Joe noted in his book, 5K @ 8K, the OEM chains only lasted about 5K miles before they were totally shot. The sprockets were not much better. CSC sells an upgraded chain at a good price (less than $150 for X-Ring chain and both sprockets) and I'd expect to get at least 10K out of that setup....maybe double that if you really take good care of it. My last Ducati went 20K miles on one set of chain and sprockets but I was also using an automatic oiler.
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