I bought the pro carbon after riding a few of the other carbon models. Mostly because of the upgraded components, ultegra derailers, carbon cranks, slighty better hubs/wheels, and nicer disc brakes. I do love to tinker with my bikes, but I decided to just buy a high end bike and leave it be (well for now, I have been looking at carbon wheelsets lately). Before I bought it I read this forum quite a bit. One of the best bits of advice I got was to figure out where you want to be with the bike. If you intend on doing lots of upgrades then buy the lower end carbon frame model and use the money you saved for the upgrades. If you don't like to or have time to tinker then buy the nicer bike and enjoy it.