Resilion Cantilevers work great. The down side is they were always expensive, and it is very difficult to find all the parts necessary to get a set working. The cables, in particular, came complete from the factory; it's a Y-shaped cable with a ball end at each end, and you have to get the right size for your frame... pain in the neck. I got a pretty good deal on a complete set a while back, but it turned out the cables were for a tandem! Doh....

Aside from that, Resilion cantilever brakes have no quick release function, nor any possibility of retrofitting one.

The standard derailleur design ca 1948 was the Simplex Tour-de-France; similar derailleurs were made by Cyclo, Huret, and many other brands as late as the early 1960's. They function quite well when set up correctly; the main downside is that if the bike falls over on the drive side, the derailleur tends to get bent, and once it is bent, it is impossible to set up correctly. In contrast, if a bike falls over on its parallelogram derailleur (like the Campagnolo Gran Sport and all of its imitators, which includes every derailleur made today) the derailleur simply moves to a larger cog position, from which it springs back when the weight is removed. They are much less likely to get badly bent in a minor accident.