I ended up with the regular Deore brakeset. I liked the XT, but Amazon didn't have them and they're pretty much the only reliable vendor that ships to APO addresses. I kind of wish they still made the old LX brakeset. Those seem like they would be a happy medium between the vanilla and XT. I can't order somewhere else for brakes because I need to keep riding and most other online vendors take 3 weeks to get stuff here. I didn't know which Kool Stop pads to get though.