First question - is your seat height right? (Also fore and aft.) I read "... and right where my hamstring meets my butt" and my first thought was - seat's too high. I've obviously never seen you on a bike and I could well be wrong, but - seat height and position should always be right before addressing "cockpit" issues. Always.

I like being stretched out with bars not so low but well forward. (Since I have very long arms, this means ridiculously long stems on most production bikes. My early '80s bikes I've used for commuter and rain bikes have had custom 180s (now 175 with slight down angle) since 1995. I'd always felt cramped with 130s (the stem most call long) except on my racing bike with its very steep angles. When I took the risk and had the 180 made, it was a revelation!

For me,the best fit has me feeling a little like a cat doing its stretch. Where they make their back really long. I find I can breath deeper and my back loves it 9onci it is in to the concept. Can take me a couple of rides.)

We are all very different. This is not a preach, just what works for me. Now I used to race and the horizontal back is something I practiced religiously and can still do 40 years later (if I have been riding).

Second point - the heels of you hands hurting. the conventional wisdom is that you need to tailor your seat to get zero weight on your hands. I don't buy that; at lest not for me. Now, I have always had real weight on my hands and as I get older, addressing that has become increasingly more important. But I don,t seek out ways to reduce the weight. All of them take me to positions that are not as comfortable for my back, hamper my breathing and force this skinny, long and light guy to do a lot more work anytime I'm riding sorta fast or there's any wind. No, I take real pains to dial in the cockpit to be a really friendly place to land my hands. First, I place the bars; height, fore and aft location and rotation so the drops are a place I can spend all day. Then I ride the bike with the brake levers about where I want them, but no bar tape; bring all the wrenches to the handlebars and brake levers and stop as many times as I need to to adjust. (This is mostly the brake lever height as I should already have the bars pretty close.) I do at least two bare handlebar rides and don't tape until I like what I've got. That first tape job is cheap cloth tape wrapped from the bottom so I can easily unwrap halfway, tweak the lever position and re-tape.

So, sorry, I have no answers as all, but maybe you can see what you need to address. This is (in my opinion) one of the most critical areas of the bike to get rights; one of the three contact points of your body. (Like the engine mounts on your car. Simply gotta be right.)

Ben