absolutely. no thinking, you just do whatever it takes.

and i'm no great cyclist or anything. in 3 of my 4 crashes, i was alone and the culprit was either a curb or tree root. B^)

It's a bit of an aside, but unlike modern brakes, vintage brakes were simply not meant to be used from the hood position. Sure you could brake from the tops, but it was understood to be a hack way to brake that only sort of worked. We would only brake from the hoods cruising through town on warm up or warm down while telling jokes and discussing girls/cars/whatever. Real braking on a descent or in a race was always done from the drops.

IMO the various Shimano dual pivots brakes worked better and felt better than campy through the 90s. I can't really say anything about Campagnolo brakes of the last 10-15 years or so, as I haven't used them. Back farther in time, I at one point used both Dura Ace EX (7200) and Campy record. Both were pretty good but I found fine control was better with the campy brakes, so I vote for them. Good for keeping 6" off someone's wheel on a tricky descent. Plus they felt really solid and were dead reliable.

This talk of emergency stops gets me thinking about my approach. If it's of any value, I practice them so I can be ready. I've trained my reflexes fairly well. I stop hard enough to lift my rear wheel just slightly, and then it comes down. I also rehearse falls, using the technique that actors on stage use. That came in handy a couple of winters ago when I was riding a track bike on the ice-covered bike path at night. That one night, I fell three times, and I didn't get hurt because of my "stage falls". I did something similar with my car which had anti-lock brakes. When it there was slippery snow on the ground, I went out and found a safe place to skid, then I applied the brakes maximally to get the feel of how the car acts in that situation.

The Ultegra brakes on my modern bike work great. Seems to me new Super Record brakes will cost you about double, they may be lighter but it doesn't sound like they work better. I guess if you can afford it and want everything to match, go for it.

IME, campy brakes don't work as well. I suspect it's the "skeleton design" which is at fault. It may save a few grams but probably introduces more flex into the calipers.

I've read somewhere that campy doesn't believe in a braking design which maximizes braking power: racers don't want to come to a complete stop: they want brakes to scrub speed rather than bring them to a screeching halt.

Either way, shimano has more braking power with less hand pressure.