A hotter than standard plug might keep the plug cleaner & firing,
but may not have too much effect on the total combustion process.
Maybe Honda didn’t get that bit of the engine design wrong.
i.e. perhaps they didn’t put in the piston window boost ports for a reason.
The performance aim is to achieve maximum possible cylinder pressure after TDC.
(We are burning fuel and oxygen to heat and expand the Nitrogen in the air.)
If the piston crown is now running much cooler, then the produced pressure will be lowered.
Increasing the compression ratio will produce quicker & hotter combustion, but if this is not desirable,
for mechanical or physical starting issues, you might need to look at the head and upper cylinder finning.
Perhaps there is now too much, for the boost port cooled piston?
I wouldn’t start chopping fins off (yet) but you could conduct some tests with airflow ‘reduced’ to the head fins
and see what effect that has on combustion chamber temp (use the std. plug) and the resulting power output.
Have fun, DJ