I've set up a number of road bars on older bicycles. But I'm confused about how most people set up them up.

Usually I see the shifters being placed so that the bottom tip of the shifter will touch a flat edge that runs along the bottom of the drops.

This doesn't seem comfortable to me. So on my last build, I tipped the bars up slightly so that the ramps up to the levers were fairly flat.

As a result I could move the handlebars ahead about an inch. This also helped the setup because the stem didn't quite reach enough.

But now I'm looking at another bike I'm building. The bars are set up at a steep angle and I'd like to make that angle less steep. However, the top tube + stem length is now adequate. So flattening out the ramp might place the bars too far out for me.

What guideline do you follow here?