Great advice all around, thanks everyone! Mostly I just wanted to hear that I'm not the only one with these woes, and it sounds like that is indeed the case. Lots of different strategies here, bu I think for me it's gonna be "do a reasonable amount of maintenance and cleaning, and be prepared for fairly regular component replacement." An IGH is interesting but requires significant up-front cost and re-configuration of the bike - plus I'm just not sure that my range of climbing would be comfortably doable with any smaller gearing range than is currently available to me. I'm picking up a used set of fenders today to cut up for parts to make extensions for the race blades that will hopefully cut down on the spray a bit, and I'll get busy ordering parts for the inevitable replacements...