most people think the use of aero levers are a more comfortable option as compared to non-aero. and short reach aero levers can be easily found online. what you lose is extra cable/housing flopping around. what you gain is a sleek cockpit. but if you're trying to keep it original with non-aero levers, you might find the reach issue more difficult to solve. some use suicide levers to deal with this.
a girl recently wanted me to do a quick overhaul of her little nishiki. she has little hands, though i don't know if they're smaller than average. she had two additional top bar levers installed in the cable path on her drop bars in addition to the aero levers. she's a friend, so i gave her a little bit of a hard time about it. she agreed and wanted them off. so i retaped her bars, removed the additional top bar levers, moved the aero levers up so she could ride on the hoods, and it was looking sweet. i wrapped it up and got her on her way...
trouble was, she now couldn't reach the levers with her small hands on the drops. i had to retape the bars and move the levers down, preventing her from riding on the hoods, but allowing her to stop and avoid killing herself. in setting up the cockpit, i was more concerned with 'normal' and aesthetics, not her comfort and her little hands. it cost us both. live and learn.