My .02 is compacts are great for recreational riders like me. Cavaet is as mech stated well...big jump from 50 to 34 which I never like for shifting or pedaling. For that reason I ride 50/38 which is perfect for the relatively rolly but flatish land I ride. A concept that gets lost on many is...gear redundancy is good and not bad. If you don't need the gear inches on the top or bottom then overlap between rings is a very good thing because either ring serves the purpose more fully and shifting between the rings is more seamless with less rear shifting to equal gear inches. If you aren't a brute and don't need to scale Everest...a 50/38 is a fabulous compact combo. Even with compact Campy you can get a generic inner ring to fit with a bit of dremmel surgery to the single offset mounting hole.