Originally Posted by
gsindela
I've not read this entire thread, but wanted to chime in. I ride Force 22. I'm no engineer, but it seems to me that having one lever for brakes and one lever for shifting is fundamentally less complex and therefore more reliable than the way Shimano does it with the dual function brake lever. Just my two cents.
Also, there is a youtube video reviewing Ultegra vs. Force. The reviewer is a bike mechanic and he says the shifting on the Force was less "finicky" than on the Ultegra. That swayed me quite a bit.
I'm using ~12 year old Ultegra 6600 as the componentry on my primary road bike. It's absolutely bulletproof and hardly "finicky". I have 6800 on my gravel bike. It's similarly bulletproof. The majority of people I ride with are on 6700 or 6800 and I've never heard of a problem. Granted, I've never heard of a commonly-occurring problem with any SRAM or Campy either. Components are very reliable in general.
To the OP: I know you say you flushed the levers. Did you fill the entire lever body at least twice until dripping with degreaser? That's the right way to do it: heavy, heavy application. Flushing levers is a messy outside job or you're not doing it right. Sticky levers is a fairly common problem for any brand. Luckily, it's generally easy to fix. Also, the levers should not need heavy grease at all, that's just going to gum them up. I use light lubes like ProLink in the levers.