I qualify to join your club. I have several bikes and none with brifters. But I am qualified only because I am too cheap to buy new parts, and the parts I had laying around when I assembled my bikes did not include brifters. However, brifters are superior to all other forms of shifters used on road bikes, unless you insist on running incompatible parts. Brifters are a major step forward from the previous unequivocal improvement in bicycle shifting - indexed shifting.