I disagree with skipping Athena, Athena is a workhorse group from Campy like 105 is to Shimano. I would skip Centuar and Chorus not Athena. I have Athena on one of my bikes and it's good stuff. If anything I would get the Athena group and upgrade the rear derailleur to Chorus. Athena uses more forged parts instead of stamped parts found on Campys lower end stuff, and they use steel bushings in the derailleurs instead of plastic.

But I would use Centaur cassettes because their cheaper. Athena shifting feels like Chorus or Record whereas the lower level Campy feel plastic, feels like low end stuff. Some people cry about Chorus rear brake is single pivot...BIG FREAKING DEAL!! I have all sorts of older bikes with single pivot brakes and the really nice ones like the Suntour Superbe feels just as good as the dual pivots! A dual pivot brake system will not stop you any faster then single pivots because it's all about tire adhesion and brake pads; so to have a single pivot design on the rear is a complete non issue.

The only question I have in regards to the new Athena 11 speed is how reliable will it be, and how often will chains need to be replaced. Supposedly from what I understand, you can use a Athena group with a 10 speed cluster and chain, someone may want to verify though to make sure that's right. If that's right then you can make it less expensive to operate by doing the conversion. Personally I don't see the point of having more then 7 or 8 gears in the rear, but it's the wave of the future to make us have 100 gears back there someday, and with that thinner chains and gears so they wear out faster.

By the way, on my new bike I went with 105 all around except the rear derailleur is Ultegra. I was going to go with Campy Athena but not one shop in the town I live in carries spare parts so I would have to order parts and wait. I decided against the possibility of repair hassles and waiting.