I’ve never owned a vehicle with rear disc brakes, so I don’t know what I’m missing. Like insightful above, both my Hondas have had rear drums, and the newest car I’ve owned has been my 1999 CRV, so I’m about 15 years behind the times.
I once drove around the country in a 1969 VW camper with 4 wheel drum brakes, though, and that thing was a death trap, but somehow I survived.
My first car had manual 4 wheel drums. It wouldn’t lock the wheels after braking hard from 70 to 45! Serious,serious fade. Put me off drum brakes forevermore. My cars have all disks. It pains me to service my electric drum trailer brakes!
The only thing I can say for rear drums is that the parking brakes work well, forever and always. Using the regular brakes keeps the drums and shoes clean and ready so the parking brakes work against a nice clean friction surface
I once bought a 61 Dodge Dart Phoenix with a 318, 4 years old . It had just had a brake job from Sears. If you hit the brakes hard at 70, it would just shudder and smoke but at no point could you lock a wheel.
I purchased a 4 wheelset of Grey Rock linings (used in NASCAR at the time) and they performed wonderfully. You could take it up to 100 and hit the brakes and it would set you down just like you ran into a big pillow.
Then as today- cheap brakes give you lousy performance.