Dammit, I was just coming back to delete it because as soon as I hit post I knew it was going to turn into one of these "It doesn't matter what you said, I think you mean this..." threads. Well, now that it's out there I guess I'd better defend it.

The bike in question takes an extremely cursory amount of initiative to research. It's one of the most well-documented, well-researched, and well-loved bicycle models of all time. In saying that the OP didn't seem to know much about it I wasn't being insulting or elitist, I was making an observation. When one asks or implies questions like "Is it worth $300," "What's a Le Tour rear derailleur," and "SunTour bar-ends<--WTF?," one makes it apparent they don't know anything about the bike. There's nothing wrong with that, everyone starts out in the same boat. However, with the OP's right-off-the-bat statement of what he thought was wrong with it and what he was going to change it's difficult not to cringe. Whomever assembled the bike made intelligent choices for it's running gear that made real sense for it's intended purpose, which you yourself have pointed out. The fact that the OP doesn't seem to realize this is again reflective of his lack of experience. I guess it's the attitude that's disconcerting.

Let me sum it up by making the following analogy. In the neighborhood I grew up in there was a teenager with rich parents that bought him a new Corvette. All it takes to acquire a Corvette is the requisite amount of money and being in the right place at the right time. However, what it takes to operate a Corvette is a bit of expertise that can't be bought at any price. Suffice it to say that when he hit a friend of mine he hospitalized three people and ruined a fine automobile, he had the money, but not the know-how.

That said I will apologize for any implicit insult in my post and amend my initial statement of "Don't buy it" to : Buy it if you like, and we'll all be happy to answer your questions about it, but please understand before you do anything hasty that this is a forum of enthusiasts and plenty of folks would love to have that bike just the way it is. It's not an LHT.