SO, the plan is forming! You must be so excited. Listen to his advice, but you know a lot about this too so don't be afraid to trust your intuition. In the end, its your bike. That is great he thinks you can use 700c wheels, it will give you a lot more flexiblity. The only thing I think you might want to reconsider are the bar cons vs sti shifters. Sti is just so easy to shift since your hands are already on the hoods. I don't think I would like having to move to the drops everytime I wanted to make a shift. Maybe it would help if he had a bike in the shop you could test ride with sti. If you have small hands you may want the ones (ultegra level) with shims designed for smaller hands. I am also curious if he said you can fit fenders and 32c tires with the long reach side pull brakes. I think if its a sport frame its just easier to design it for long reach side pulls. When I had my frame retrofit, I noticed there wasn't a lot of room in there for cantis, so my frame builder had a special device he built to mount cantis inside a smaller than ideal space, although it its custom maybe they do have a lot of flexiblity. I had to either use cantis or move the bridge, and I worried moving the bridge would weaken the frame, and I already owned a set of cantis, so I went that route and have no regrets.

p.s. if you have any questions on the specs of the waterford my friend built he said you can send him an email (his address was in the email I sent you last night).