Curious to know how the new Shimano Sora DT shifters compare to the old ones. Any benefits going either with a new low grade shifter, or an old higher level shifter?

Or is a downtube shifter pretty much a downtube shifter?

Thanks.

The great thing about the originals was that you could switch them to Friction mode if something happened to throw off the indexing. The R400s are priced right, but don't have that friction mode. I guess no one worries about things going wrong in the middle of a ride anymore.