This one goes to 11

The EXPENSIVE 11 speed chain tool.

The peened chain pin, courtesy of EXPENSIVE chain tool.

Record RD. Ceramic.

The shifter. Looks weird, rides nice.

The new cable routing. This is the 90* bend the cable must make to enter the housing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Following are my thoughts on Campgnolo's new 11 speed group. It is long and may bore non-tech types:

11 speed:
The most noticeable difference is the lever shape. 11 has a more ergo look and feel to it. Standard hood riding feels the same, but riding "on top of the hoods" is where the 11 shines. It has a support for the part of your hand between the index finger and thumb which offers a more stable and comfy feel when in this position.
Plus the brake lever is 1) longer and 2) has a different pivot point. This requires that the sifter be placed in slightly lower position on the bar than the 10speed lever for the same hand position, but allows for better braking when operating the lever form the "on top of the hoods" position.
It should be noted that I have not ridden this group w/out thick-ass gloves on yet, so I don’t have a totally accurate feel for all of this (I usually ride w/out gloves at all, but it’s been so cold).
Crank and FD are pretty much the same, so far as I can tell. They work great. I think I remember reading the FD and chain rings are all new for quicker shifting, but I can’t tell; Campy always shifts pretty darn fast up front, so whatever.
I subbed out the Chorus rear derailer in favor of a Record to get pulleys that operate on ceramic. It was a ~$60 (wholesale) upgrade, and you can’t buy ceramic pulleys for double that alone, so I figured it’d be worth it. I don’t know if it’s just that the whole drive train is smoother or what, but I ‘think’ I can feel the ceramic smoothness under pedaling. Probably not, but it seems to be noticeable.
On Chorus (this may not be true of Record or Super Record) the shifting action is softer feeling than 10spd. It is not a light as the ’Escape’ shifting introduced a year or two ago on the lower end groups, but still lighter than I’m used to and would prefer. I’ll get used to it once I’m riding that bike all the time, but when I’m riding it sparsely due to crappy weather, it’s a noticeable difference.
I do have two official gripes about the new stuff. 1 the shift cable routing. In order to remove the "bulge" under the bar tape created from the housing meeting the shifter, Campy changed the way the cable routes form the gear mech to the housing. While it does make a seamless transition under the tape (which, for the record, I never really minded the little bulge anyway), the cable has to make an almost 90* bend in the shifter body. There is an insert in the shifter where this bend takes place to smooth the operation, but installing the cable is difficult. I had to use a flat-head jewelers-sized screwdriver to route the cable into place (coax the cable into place may be more appropriate wordage). As far as I can see, there is no other way to route this cable. The days of just pushing it into the gear mech, through the shifter body and into the housing are over for now. My second gripe is w/ the chain installation. While it’s a really cool system, and seems like it will work very effectively, it’s costly. In a nutshell, the chain installs like a Shimano chain w/ the long pin fed through then broken off, but the similarities stop there. The Campy chain is then peened where it was broken off to add strength at the vulnerable "pinned link." Like I said, this is a good system and makes sense, but there exists one tool on the market w/ which to do this. It’s made by Campy and wholesales for $140. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful handmade in Italy tool, but you CANNOT install an 11spd chain w/out it and it’s $140! And it’s not like the old ‘perma-link’ tool they used to have which was a Italian pair of vice grips, this tool is necessary.
All in all I give it high marks. I think it has some better qualities than 10spd, and is evolution. I do think the differences are more subtle though in contrast to Dura Ace 7900, which in my opinion is a major improvement over 7800.
So that’s my take on it. Go w/ the flow, live in the now and change w/ the times. Everyone will be 11 speed soon enough (I predict Sram to ‘make the leap’ first, then Shimano to follow the year after Sram.)