Like most folks my age, I had a "ten speed" as a teenager, with friction shifting. I never liked taking my hands off the bars to shift, so I ended up "upgrading" my bike to stem-mounted shifters. And like a most folks my age, I stopped riding as soon as I got a drivers license.
Then 25 years ago I started riding again, and over tens of thousands of miles, I've become much better at bike handling than I was as a kid. A couple years ago I built up an old Cannondale frame I had with indexed DT shifters and found I was now completely comfortable taking a hand off the bars to shift. So I got a couple 80s bikes with DT friction shifters, and I'm fine with those, too, though I still find indexed shifting a lot easier to handle - *clik* and you're in the next gear. Sometimes a quick flick of the lever with friction shifters goes too far, and I've gone two gears.
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"Don't take life so serious-it ain't nohow permanent."
"Everybody's gotta be somewhere." - Eccles