I am so sorry to have belittled anyone's pain and torment. The truth is that even for those that can master the lower back flexibility needed to ride with a low, stretched out position, the most un-kinesthetic thing about low drops is the strain it puts on the cervical vertebrae. My yoga teacher was here in South Florida last month, and I forced her to watch me in the low drops. She gave me exercises to strengthen and re-align the thoracic section, further stretch the glutes at the insertion, and help with the cervical too. She wants the cervical stretched long with a gentle arch, not the bent up position that I have been using. Basically the head and cervical vertebrae need to feel pulled long out of the thorax, so that there is no shortening of the spinal energy. Not an easy task. I am up to trying though, and am still relatively pain free.
My original point is that Rivendell folk are practical (pragmatists) in that they want to avoid body problems by bringing up those bars. I think that the classic position (race) is with the tops of the bars an inch or two below the seat top. Nowadays people are using tiny frames with the stem sunk all the way down getting the tops as much as 4 or 5 inches lower than the seat. The new obsession is not classic either, while the old standard is probably less than healthy for many. I like the classic look with a two inch drop, a one inch drop or just even for touring bikes. 20 mm tires are the new style but 23's and 25's appear classic. 28's on a race bike may be just as fast for Rivendellers, but it's not a sleek look. I sure do like those Rivendell lugs and luscious attention to detail. I remain somewhat romantic, and hope no one looks too closely at the modern Looks I use with degree adjustment yellow knobs. That I give up for comfort over classicism. (Something like it existed in the early eighties though).
Garth Libre in Surfside Fl. riding with 42 cm wide bars that have slight anatomic flats to avoid wrist pain.(not classic)