in the book Daniel Rebour: Bicycle Drawings there is a pencil line drawing of a bike set up
for the 1945 Paris Cycle Show with shifters attached to the front of brake levers on a road bike.
So the idea of "brifters" is not very new I used some 8-sp. Campy Ergo shifters in the early 90s
and I surprised myself by liking them, the down side was shifting much more often than I needed to.
I've now moved on to flat bar ( the old race bike is now a gentleman's model) with thumb shifters
in friction mode which works great!