I agree with you on this. I use to ride my old cannondale road bike (20 years ago...)for hours on end and it was fine at the time. Got ripped off so I bought a mtn bike and really liked the stability and extra power and leverage I felt. My next bike was an old road bike that I put Scott AT3's on which were really nice, lots of hand positions but just a bit narrow for me, close to drops. Next bike was a flat bar road bike that road for a while stock, then I went with a riser bar and bar ends. I liked that even more. Lots of width, nice and stable but you do pay for it some with a head wind. But really I find that I can either move my hands in toward the stem somewhere or put them out on the bar ends and just bend my elbows a little more to tuck down. Just orderd a LHT frame and I'll be going either with the riser bar and bar ends off my current bike or the AT3's, or maybe something else, but not drops. Haven't made up my mind yet. I test road a fully built LHT yesterday before I orderd the frame and I wasn't fond of the drops. They felt two narrow.