bicycling magazine is interesting?

how can that be?  but they've almost committed an act of journalism, such as it is, with this.  campagnolo has always been the bestest stuff, but the shimano junk usually works well.  unfortunately, shimano has been all too eager to fuck over their users with inane new standards, no back-compatability, and stupid shit just for stupid's sake.  plus, the newer the stuff, the more super ugly it is.  their latest cranks, road and mountain, are just horrible, and when shimano went to the 4-bolt chainrings on the mountainbike cranks for no good reason, they deserved to be stomped on by godzilla over and over and over again.  the mountain rear derailleurs are stoopid looking, too.  the cold-forged deore, deore xt and even xtr mountainbike components--from the late 80's, early 90's halcyon days--were simple, clean, strong and good-looking, like much of the campagnolo road stuff still is today, plastic carbon parts and all.