A couple of tips on riding: My perception is that a lot of the local club guys get into a mental trap of riding very fast as compared to their capabilities and just assume that's how they should ride all the time, which effectively rules out any long distances for them.
While I don't disagree, riding too slowly is also a trap -- my personal trap -- in that it means you have to spend more hours on the bike to cover your distance. That's fatiguing in and of itself.
To the OP: don't get too hung up about gear. General type is far more important than brands.
While I enjoy BQ very much, my personal tastes differ from some of their recommendations. For example, I do not like narrow cranks ("Q" ?), which they promote as an important design objective. Maybe it's just my larger body type but they don't work for me as well as standard shimano spec.
And I think many of their points, while valid, are not that important for those of us who ride 300k's or less. Which is the vast majority of us out there (although by no means everyone who hangs in this particular forum!)
My advice is to keep the horse in front of the cart. Just get out and ride on just about any road bike except the super-light/fragile racing stuff. By the time you've worked up to the levels that more subtle and expensive equipment choices are important to your riding, you'll already have a good deal of knowledge and won't be relying too heavily on someone else's opinions and surveys.
Notwithstanding the beauty and craftsmenship of high end gear, I'll borrow from Fromm and posit that biking primarily should be about "being," not "having."