Well, I cycled over to the bike shop last night to have them look at the brakes.

They said these are the brakes that are coming on the larger Tricross Sport frames now. They weren't adjusted quite right, and with some tweaking, I now have nice braking. The only issue is, it is almost impossible to get the "quick release" to work, so transporting the bike in our car wont be too easy. If it continues to be an issue, I'll try to get them to swap the v-brakes out for cantis, but on the ride home there was a marked difference (and some great braking).