Disks win because you don't wear out your rims. Dishing and spoke breakage will not be an issue if your wheels are built properly.

Hydraulic disks are the best, performance-wise.
They are really low maintenance, actually- bleed them once every year or two (maybe) and replace pads. Other than that, the settings and feel basically never change. Bleeding is easy, anyone who tells you otherwise has never bled hydraulic brakes. Yeah, you could tear the hydraulic housing in outer durkadurkastan, but you could also catch a ricochet or get hit by a meteorite. I wouldnt worry about it. Besides, you think you can get a decent canti in durkadurka either? Ha, good luck.

Avid BB7 road disks are pretty close (they feel spongier... until they grab), and can be used with drop bars and levers, a great choice for a touring bike - if they work with your rack. New frames put them in the right spot, lots of old frames did not. The pads last and they are tiny and can be replaced w/o tools. Carry a spare rotor when youre planning a trans-durka adventure, however, In ten years of using disks to more-slowly-crash my mtbs, Ive never bent a rotor. Cause I'm not an idiot who throws my expensive wheels around or drops my bike on sharp edges. If you're gonna fly somewhere, take the rotors off - pretty simple. (and yet, the claim never dies! the disks are going to bend!!) it happens, sure. Not often.

Paul touring cantis and neo-retro are pretty great cantilevers, I like them only slightly less than my machine tech zero-flex cantis from the mid 90's. High end cantilevers are great, for the most part. I used them until eventually switching to disks, largely bypassing v-brakes. But V brakes work great too, and are idiot proof, setup wise. Cantis get a bad rap because people are crappy mechanics, and they use cheap brakes with cheap springs that dont have equal spring tension side-to-side, and they use way too much cable housing and non-teflon, non pre-stretched cabling etc..

Which brings me to a final point: if you use shoddy cables and too much worthless cheap-ass housing without those little metal ends for the cut surfaces of the housing, your braking will suck. To anyone who says _______ brand brakes of ______ design are no good, I call BS. You just dont know how to make them work. Ive worked on waaaaaaayyyyyy too many crappy bikes with crappy brakes to believe those claims. Working on crappy brakes is tedious and annoying, but nearly always possible. 1970's crappy centerpulls even work great if you take your time with them.

summary:

dont buy crappy brakes. The rest is pretty much mox-nix.

disks- the best because you dont have to rebuild your wheels when your rims dont wear out.
hydraulics- the best performance. rim or disk. Pretty much flat bars only at the moment.
everything else- just fine too, whatever just dont buy crap and use good housing and cables.

PS, youre way better off buying whatever brakes are a good deal and spending more on your tires.
That is, if you care about safety and performance.

/thread