I *did* have trouble shifting to the big ring (triple) on my first road bike. Crappy, probably Tiagra, components. My second bike had Ultegra, but the big ring (triple) still was an issue. DH put a Dura Ace front derailleur on it and that solved it. I have average sized hands and long fingers. I do have a short reach, though, more my arm length than hands.
I have the R700 short reach Ultegra brifters on my Kuota and combined with a short/shallow drop bar, it's awesome. In fact, some would think my position is scrunched, but it gives me confidence. Unfortunately, when I did my custom Guru build 1.5 years ago, the R700 brifters now are 105s, which in and of itself is OK, but they lengthened the reach by 2mm and I cannot reach the brakes as well when I am in the drops on this bike. I also have a different bar, which is also impacting it.
Another thing is that my DH keeps everything tuned to perfection; there have been times when friends have taken their bikes to a shop and the issue of shifting to the big ring was not solved. DH was able to fix this, quickly, on the road a few times.
The moral of the story is get a good mechanic and do some research about stuff for short reach/small hands. I did my own research, my LBS poo-pooed me, but I have been so much happier since I got the bar I have now than when I had the 300.00 carbon bar that they thought was cool.