Appreciate the info. I think BG was one of the places I'd read of the Shimano road/mountain FD pull ratio change. And Shimano's compatibility charts, while nice, are rather short on anything resembling hard data.

I'd not give that last article much credence re: pre-10 speed front shifting. I've seen far too many references to an earlier FD pull ratio change on Shimano's part for their mountain FDs. (They're correct about up to 9 speed rear; everything I've read and seen indicates that Dura-Ace excepted, those were all the same for Shimano RDs). I've also seen accounts where someone managed to get such a mismatch to work - temporarily - until a bit of routine wear caused things to go out of adjustment enough to cause problems. And as you've found from personal experience, there are indeed sometimes issues with Shimano triple FDs from the "mountain tribe" interfacing with Shimano road brifters.

Unfortunately, neither BG nor Shimano gives much in the way of actual data re: pull ratios. I can understand Shimano not wanting to publicize too much of their design info, but that's relatively easy to measure; I'm rather surprised that no one has done that and posted the results publicly. I was hoping you'd run across a chart or article that gave that kind of info for FDs. While that type of data is available for RDs, I've never seen a source giving actual FD pull ratios.

Again: thanks for the reply, and best of luck.