I for one am glad you are ignoring the nay-Sayers. I've been working on bikes for 36 years now, and I may not always have known what I was doing when I started, but the knowledge I gained from trying has been great. Plus I now have a very cool selection of tools!

One other shifting option. If you decide to stick with friction shifters, bar-end shift levers work well and are easy to use. I like brifters as well but I have Barcons on most of my older bikes.