Thank you for the welcomes. From my lurking it seemed like you were a good, helpful bunch here, and the info so far has been helpful.
I missed out on that frame entirely. It was gone from craigslist by the time I got home from work yesterday afternoon. Still kind of sad about it (especially after finding seeing what Shimano 600 bits go for on ebay) but it is the nature of craigslist.
I was thinking about it earlier, and it seems like an extremely stupid question, but would modern bikes be comparable in how they fit to the older bikes? It is funny to me with all of the looking and searching I have done that I never figured it out. I ask because there are plenty of new bike stores around but there are not many used places. Closest one is about 45 minutes away in Easton, PA, and it looks like they only have a limited selection. Also, while it may be blasphemy, I have to admit that I have never ridden a bike with drop bars before. The Via Carisma has flat bars with horns on the end sticking up and the only other bike I have ridden much was a Huffy mountain bike back when I was younger.