I rode with drop bars exclusively for 40 years. Then, after I developed ulnar nerve damage that surgery didn't fix completely, I added a set of aero bars to my drop bars.

Now, almost 20 years later, I alternate between bikes with flat bars and bullhorn bars, both fitted with aero bars. Still have a couple of bikes with drop bars plus aero bars, but I rarely ride them. All else equal, I find that bikes with flat bars and aero bars are safer in traffic than bikes with drop bars and faster elsewhere.

An incident I just remembered that illustrates the benefit of aero bars versus drops:

A year or so after Trek came out with their 5200 OCLV carbon model, which had the lightest production frame on the market, I sold one to a friend of mine. We went out on a training ride a few days later. He was riding his Trek; I was on a mid-level steel Schwinn that I'd converted from drops to flat bars and aero bars.

We were generally about equal in strength, climbing ability, etc., but that day, a couple of hours in, I unintentionally dropped him repeatedly over several miles of a long, slightly rolling stretch of road. (Having just sold him the 5200, which was arguably the most advanced bike on the market, I felt an obscure urge to apologize.)