Mine's tucked away as we speak in my in-law's garage. Dirty oil in it and everything. I never start it over the winter unless I'm gonna ride it. I just leave it on the Tender. I'm certainly no expert, but I've been doing this with all my bikes for years now. Never a problem. Hell I usually have it back up and running sometime in March so it's not like it's THAT long of a time in storage.
Interesting analogy: A lot of people smoke for 20, 30 or more years with never a problem. Just sayin'.
One of my storage techniques is to run the tank almost dry of fuel, put a dose of ringdinger oil in it, quite a strong dose, so it'll smoke some. Run the engine till it's gone and the carbbies are "empty". Drain the carbs, remove any left over fuel from the tank. Put about a cup or two of oil in the tank and slosh it around so it completely covers the inside. Store in the house where humidity is lower. Slosh it around once a month or so.
And I change the oil before storing.
I don't have to mess with that whole storage issue here, but I do have a KLR out in California that only gets ridden for two weeks a year that I have to mess with.