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Referring to the image, which do you feel is the best treatment (most balanced) for small caps?

Top — Caps and small caps using their default settings for weight and size.
Middle — Caps have their weight dropped from bold to medium. Small caps are unchanged.
Bottom - Caps have their weight dropped from bold to medium, and size dropped from 16 to 15. Small caps are unchanged.

From just a pure theoretical view, your last example looks the most balanced. But what happens when it's placed in context with the rest of your design or layout? Potentially the last example may not work so well then. The context of how this will be used will really decide which approach is the most balanced.

Small caps like space… Eg add tracking to balance the colour, esp. when used in regular text.
I prefer *my* small caps to be slightly taller than the lower case.