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...chances are pretty good that a bicycle from Costco will have a lesser quality set of brakes as pat of the pricing strategy.
I don't think V brakes are better or worse than centerpull...as you have noted, once a brake stops your wheel rolling to where your tire skids, it's not really doing you much good in the range beyond that. I presume you meant to type 1970's to describe your experience with center pulls. But center pull brakes can be something of a chore to set up properly in the first place. And back before the washers that allow toe in to be set on the pads were available, I can remember that you had to either bend the caliper arm, or shave down the pads to achieve toe in on a noisy one. They work well, though.
There's usually a balancing adjustment screw on v brakes, to allow centering them. Yours probably have that feature, unless they are really low end. It works by increasing or decreasing the spring tension on (at least) one or both sides.