I'll give you my two cents on your gearing question. I also started out with a road triple, and found that I never used the big ring. If you're finding the 52 too big, you could be a good candidate for a compact double. The most popular compact combination is 50/34, and Shimano now makes an Ultegra-level crankset in this combination.
I switched to a 48/34 compact double, and I really like how the gearing is working for me. I can spend most of my time on the 48, and bail out to the 34 on steeper hills. Also, because the 48 is the right-sized big ring for me, I don't have to trim my front derailleur nearly as often as I used to with the standard-sized double that I replaced.
If you're interested in checking out compact gearing, I would suggest that you look at your current bike and figure out the front/rear gear combination that you use most frequently, e.g. on flats at the speed you like to ride. Then go to a gear calculator and figure out what the gear-inches are for that combo. Then, you can determine whether a 50 front ring would be better for you than your current 52, for a particular rear cassette - would you be in the middle of the cassette with a 50 front ring, at your favorite gear-inches length? [Apologies if I'm mangling the terminology here!]
Or even easier - just go test ride a new bike that's already set up with 50/34