okay, i'll leave out the niceties and cut to the chase with my ignorance. would this work?

shifters: sram rival
fd: dura ace
rd: sram rival
crankset: fsa slk carbon or truvativ rouleur

i remember reading that the sram force/rival shifters work fine with shimano front dr's, just wanted to confirm before i embark on the project.

That should work.

Just make sure the RD matches the shifter.

no, that WONT work. sram front deraillers have a different actuation ratio than either shimano or campagnolo. you'll have to use a sram rival or force front derailler as well.

That's certainly the Official Sram Party Line, but in practice I doubt it will be a problem.

Front derailer/shifter matching is sometimes quite critical with triple chainring setups, but doubles are much more forgiving.

Sheldon "Try It, I'll Bet It Works Fine" Brown

Even if it does work, the SRAM shifters lack a trim option when in the big ring. The design of the outer cage plate on the SRAM deraillers prevents rub across the range of the cassette. Switch to the DA derailler, or any Shimano, and you lose that, and gain a bunch of chain rub.

The way I see it, the Force derailler is cheaper than the DA, and the Rival even moreso. Unless the OP already has the DA derailler laying around and wants to put it to use I see no reason to pay more for the Shimano when they can just buy the appropriate part, save a few bucks, and be assured it'll work as designed.

this would be a new bike, so i'd just be swapping components. the DA fd would already be on there, but you're right, a rival or force fd is pretty darn cheap too... in case it doesn't work.