When I built up my rain bike, I used an old set of bar-ends I had in a box somewhere. For one thing, they were free. For another, they were much lighter than brifters, and my $120 (new) frame was not the lightest. They're not indexed, which is fine with me. Something else I don't have to adjust. The big drawback of course is that I can't shift them standing. That's kind of a big thing for me because I have to suffer a bit more in the wrong gear and I don't like unnecessary suffering. But weight and cost is are very good reasons for using them.
My big ring story: I was on a group ride with our local "fast couple" on their tandem, Next on the road was a 500' steep climb which I take in my granny and big cog. They came into it in their big ring, tried to shift the front but with all that pressure, the chain wouldn't drop. So they just left it in the big ring and took the whole climb standing, vanishing into the distance. Cross-chained, no doubt.
There are many stories about those two.