Good disc brakes are worth what you pay for them and provide excellent year round all condition braking and their best feature is that they preserve your rims which is important to those who live in wetter climates like the PNW.

With that being said, good quality rim brakes can also offer great braking in almost all conditions if they are set up properly and the right pads are used... have discovered that at -40C not too many brake pads work as well as they did at warmer temps.

I ride year round and do not have a bike fitted with disc brakes.

I wil defend Thorn's position on not using disc brakes on their custom steel forks as I work with a frame builder of great repute who prides himself on making a beautiful riding fork who's ride quality would be negatively impacted by the application of a disc brake.

He is presently looking at designing a suspended rack that does not interfere with the fork's design and does build a steel fork with disc mounts for his tandem bicycles... these forks have to be much stiffer and stronger and on a tandem good braking is essential due to the loads and speeds tandems experience.

Even then, many tandems stillget fitted with cantis or V's up front and have an additional disc brake in the rear in additon to the primary brake to function as a drag brake or secondary as the application of force here has less effect on the bikes ride and handling while under periods of prolonged braking.

Will disagree that the rear rim is always the one that wears out fastest... if one uses proper braking technique the front rim will wear out before the rear one does as this is where 90% of properbraking happens.