scarlson 

After touring for months in Switzerland and Wales with Nuovo Record brakes, stuffing my ears with cotton on the downhills to keep from going deaf with the squeal and white knuckling my touring load to a stop inches before each cattle grid before warming my cramping hands on the steaming rims, I decided enough was enough. I only use cantilevers and center pulls forevermore. Life is too short to bother with components that don't satisfy you!

And sidepulls never satisfy me, even though I have very strong hands. You have to decide what satisfies you! I've set up a lot of bikes with dual-pivots, and they seem to work better with less hand effort, even with the same levers. Centerpulls also, although they'll be heavier and not as pretty with the rest of your campy setup. If you put some dual-pivots or centerpulls on, you'll likely have more mechanical advantage. Modern, aero levers also give you a bit more mechanical advantage, if you aren't already using them. But those Athena brakes do look cool.

I also notice your pads are at the bottom of the slots, because you've got quite a bit of clearance between the rim and the fork crown/rear bridge. This means you'll have less mechanical advantage than if the frame had less clearance. It certainly doesn't help, in my experience. Some longer-reach centerpulls had longer arms to make up for this. I think some modern dual-pivot sidepulls are the same way.