a year and half later, I felt the urge to revive this thread. It appears that the manufacturers are moving towards disc brake road bikes. most top end bike lines have a disc brake version now. there are a couple of lines that are going to exclusively disc brakes (giant propel, venge vias, maybe more?)
the standard appears to be converging to 140 mm rotors, and 12 mm thru axles. Personally, I think this is going to be a trend that's as impactful as the introduction of threadless stems from quill stems.
thoughts?