As someone planning an "upright" tour I'm enjoying this discussion. I'm 54, not the most flexible human, and I started riding on a hybrid, so that's basically what I know. Bought a used Salsa Marakkesh and detested the drop bars, immediately switching them out for Velo Orange crazy bars to be more upright but have at least one other hand position. I'm not convinced I could ever get comfortable with the brake position on the drop bars, but I do wonder how much of my dislike was just that I wasn't conditioned physically to riding in that position. With only a few months to go, though, I need to pick a lane, so I'm sticking with the Velo bars and trying to get the rest of the things dialed in.