[Richard]

It's not the brakes, it's the pads...Change out your wife's brake pads with Koolstop pads....

I'll second that. Any modern dual pivot road brake, because of the short "arm levers", has plenty of inherent stopping power, even the cheapos.

One of our mechanics got a Trek 1600 and had the same complaint. A set of Koolstop pads was "day and night."