I bet if you put the same type of brake pads you were using years ago in modern calipers they'd be equally as crap!
Brake pad technology has come along a long way, and modern brake pads used in a set of quality Weinmann calipers improves the braking performance drastically to something perfectly usable. The only downside of the is thaWeinmann calipers t they're a bit 'flexy'.
I recently tried out a friends bike, which has some lower end Weinmann calipers with the original brake pads, and they were shocking! For only £5 I put in some modern brake pads by Ashima and it's a massive improvement.
