I just use whatever digits just happens be closet with the leverage. The more hills I ride the better it gets.

I haven't even tried STI/Ergo yet...not enough money to even look at a new bike right now.
Wouldn't mind trying them.

I pretty much grew up with indexing, and it was all I used until I crumpled my surly. Since then, all I have used is friction DT. Can't really complain about it either way. On a purely aesthetic point of view: Downtube > Bar-cons > Brifter. Brifters just look so chunky and out of place, especially shimano's.

They exist, just let your campy brifters run out of tune for a while, all the sudden you have to use a 1/3 motion to get it at the gear, shifting back down you will overshoot and take a step and a half.

Yeah, it took me a while to get them tuned and precise.

I have to admit though, any more than 6 speeds on the DT and I need indexed. Just makes the use so carefree and less focal.

And the most precise and crisp too.

I don't have the newest STI shifters, but I do miss being able to shift all at once with one hand like I do on DT. Should be easier with STI, but I haven't mastered the art of two handed shifting yet.

I like DT shifters, but that is what I've got more experience with probably by a factor of at least 1000. Every time I get a bike w/bar ends, I resolve to give it another go, but I inevitably swap them for DT at the first opportunity. And if an opportunity doesn't come along pretty darn quick, like after 3-4 rides, I make one up on false pretexts. I'm going through this now w/a Fuji America I just picked up the other day.

But other folks love the things, bully for them I say, and it makes it easy to dispose of bar ends on ebay.

Stem shifters, despite their negative reputation, are surprisingly fun for casual bopping around the neighborhood. On keeper bikes I take them off on general bike-snob principles. The market for these on ebay is pretty thin. Too bad for that, since I've got a couple of sets of NOS ratcheting stem shifters. They are in a drawer next to the Confederate dollars... One thing I've always wondered, since we've been hearing the horror stories about stem shifters for decades - does anyone know of a true case of somebody actually emasculated by these things, specifically in that they would have been ok (i.e, the stem would have missed...) had they been using DT or bar ends?

As far as the one handed stuff, that is so much second nature for me I almost wrecked my new Fuji America this week. Using my right hand, first I shifted the right shifter, then thought I needed to change the front, so I reached my hand through the diamond and shifted the left shifter. Got a pretty good wobble out of it, conditioned me to never try that trick again, although it wasn't premeditated in any way, some sort of unconscious one-handed shifting mentality just was on autopilot. Pretty stupid move, in retrospect.