If I were placed in a 3rd world country and had forgotten about campy stuff, from a practicality standpoint, I'd ride a suntour/sugino grouppo, I like the mid-70's stuff, especially 110 BCD Maxy/Mighty cranks, and 1st-gen suntour cyclone (which imho in the 70's was just as good as superbe but today gets no respect and is amazingly cheap!) Pair that with Dia Compe Royal brakes, or Dia Compe centerpulls, and Sakae bars/stems/seatposts.
Alternately, I would ride shimano 600 stuff that wasn't encumbered by all the mistakes shimano tried to pull, i.e. no 3-arm cranks, no shift levers that don't fit on campy bosses, no 10mm pitch, no uniglide, no front-freewheeling, no weird 126mm cassettes, no weird aero pedals needing custom toe clips, no aero stuff, no way!
Over the long run Shimano 600 has replaced nuovo record as the mass-market domestique racing grouppo. Even today, the 600 stuff is more reliable than Dura Ace (think bottom bracket) as it's the highest-volume high-end grouppo and everything has to work well.
For a saddle I'd ride either a Brooks (durability) or a high-weight posh steel-railed 370g padded saddle (Selle Italia Turbo, San Marco Rolls, Iscaselle Tornado.)
The suntour and generic shimano stuff uses the worldwide thread standards, i.e. M10x1.00 axles, ISO headset threads, 27.2mm seatpost etc. You'd have to be crazy to ride 26 tpi stuff in a 3rd world country. If it breaks you'd be completely hosed, the spare parts would cost a fortune (wheels mfg) and take forever to obtain ...
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA, USA