I choose to stay with friction shifting, and I always will. There is something elegant(or clumsy if you're out of practice) about manually shifting a bike that does not exist in indexed shifting. You have to use some co-ordination in order to change a gear. Friction shifting is fun, indexed shifting is like fast food. . . just give me my damm food 'cause I'm in a hurry. Everyone's in a such a hurry they can't even shift their bike. . . .they gotta have something do it for them. Kinda lazy
Friction shifting never fails. With properly installed cables there's nothing to fail. . . except the riders co-ordination.
Indexed shifting has become so proprietary that if you bought a "system" 5 years ago, if you break a part you may have a hard time getting a replacement as Shimano changes things so fast your "old system" is obsolete. So you must use ebay or other means to get parts. Sound like fun? Many people don't mind or care, so to each their own. To me . . .bikes aren't computers and shouldn't be treated as such. Shimano is double edged sword, they make some nice parts, but they often have the attention span of a 5 year old. Thankfully not everyone follows the Leader(Shimano).
It's just my opinion
