Margo, what do you think of Eden's remark that shimming effects the braking effeciency (I think that is what she means by 'throw' but not sure).
I think what she means is that there is less cable pulled compared to a brake lever that does not have the shim. But this doesn't affect braking efficiency in any meaningful way. I like to pull a lot of brake cable and have the shims on the brifters on one of my bikes, and have never noticed any kind of loss of braking efficiency. I think more brake efficiency is lost when my fingers are totally extended and trying to engage a brake lever. That's unpleasant. I think shims are a good solution for retrofitting Shimano brifters. Not having to shim anything, as the SRAM brifters allow, is even better.