I have an Ultegra triple front derailleur on my Kuota Kredo semi-custom bike. It is perfect. The shifting is smoooth and I have never had a problem. I had both Ultegra and Dura Ace on my front derailleur on my last bike, a Trek 5200. I never could easily shift into the big ring. At that point, I didn't use the big ring that much, but it was a pain. Moving up to the Dura Ace did help. My first road bike, a Cannondale WSD R600 had 105s's. It sucked and I always was dropping the chain, long after I was a beginner. It was hard to shift everything.
My husband actually switched out the cassette from a 25 to a 27,on my Kuota so we could have a couple of smaller gears for the hills we do (we live on one too, and sometimes it is tiresome to know that it is the last thing we have to do on every ride!). I actually don't like that granniest of granny gears, unless I am really climbing a big one (above 10-12%). Then, I'm glad I have it. I was actually thinking of getting a compact double at one time, but since I am 53 and hope to keep riding until I drop dead, I figured that having the triple would be good as i get older. You are obviously racing and your needs are a lot different, but I would go with whatever is the easiest option in most situations. When my son raced, as a junior, he got dq'd from a few races, because of the special rules they have for gearing in junior races. He simply forgot to change the cassette and rode with the "regular" one. I guess I'm saying that is that if you have to think about changing something in a race situation, unless it is part of your regular routine, you could forget.