Late night musings on a topic that's been beat to death, but that's what keeps this forum going, right?

So, I've long been a 32 spoke rear, 28 spoke front wheel builder. It's my favorite spoke combination, and I think it was also one of Sheldon Brown's favorite counts. However...

I recently found a great deal on some hubs. These are 28 rear, 24 front. Given the low spoke counts many ride around, it seems almost silly to even be doing any hand-wringing over this build, especially since I only weigh 140lbs. But, personal long-standing preference is leading me to do so.

Planning 3x for the rear, and whatever for the front. And I'm sure they'll be fine for me. Maybe it's just offending my latent OCD traits.

Of note, the hubs are 10 speed. This is important, because NDS spoke tensions on many of the 11 speed hubs are so low that I won't go below 32 spoke on those. On 10 speed though, 28 spoke will be just fine, I think.

I dunno. Should I buy the hubs and do the build?

Are you doing rim brakes or disc/hub brakes.

I'd probably do 2x rear, & either radial, or 1x on front.

The fewer the spokes, the fewer the crosses to attain the same spoke angles.

Make sure you have some good strong rims.

If the tension differential bothers you that much, use thinner spokes on the NDS or thicker spokes on the DS.

Most of the road wheels I've been building the last couple of years have been 24/20, and the CX wheels are 28/24. These are all with CF rims of various profiles, mostly with CX Ray spokes.
I've built several hundred of them, lots ridden by big strong riders, some of them in international competitions, and to date, not a single one has come back due to spoke issues.
Pick a sturdy rim, and build away. You will be fine.

I'm not sure what bothers me, really. It might just be violating my own preferred tradition on spoke counts.

The tension would only bother me on an 11 speed. Given that many alloy rims specify 100 kgf max, that gives an NDS of around 40-50kgf, which I would only go to on 32 spokes or more.

But in this case, it's the build as a whole. And I ride on some pretty crappy roads.