Hi,
I've spent some time riding my old 80's road bike and I've noticed that it's a stretch for me to reach the brake levers, whether on the hoods or on the drops. From the hoods, I can wrap my last two fingers around the levers to apply some stopping pressure, however if I need to stop fast, I have to slide my hands outwards such that I just have my thumb across the back of the hoods in order to get three or 4 fingers to the lower part of the brake handle to apply the most mechanical advantage. I tinkered a bit with the position of the drop bars, rotating them up helps the position on the hoods, but hurts it on the drops. Even in the optimum position that I've found, if I go to the drops, which I do if I really have to brake, I have to reach my hands upwards a good bit to reach the levers. Initially I thought about replacing the bars with a more tightly rounded set with less 'drop' which you commonly see on current bikes. Then I realized, that while that may help with the drops, it does not really help with the position from the hoods, where I spend more time. Then I thought about cross levers. I've never used those and I do spend a fair amount of time with my hands close to the stem, but I was wondering if they had the same mechanical advantage as the primary levers, ie: could you apply the maximum braking force with cross levers as you can with the road levers?
I've also looked at newer levers and some of the aero levers seem to possibly position your hands closer to the lever when on the hoods, but they still seem to have the same shape as my old levers, so I'm not so sure they would do much for me.