You can’t blame the calipers, pads or levers unless the cable movement is virtually friction free and it is easily achievable.
If you’re feeling resistance when pulling the lever then your cable outer is either full of crud, split or poorly routed.
If on flat bar levers run a gear cable inner in brake outer. Fibrax stuff works fine. Reduces drag between inner and outer and i’ve never snapped an inner or torn the nipple off.
Road brifters (Shimano) as you can’t use gear inners, although I have thought about adding solder to the nipples, you have to be careful on cable routing as drop bar cable routing will always add friction, tend to get sharp bends on chainstay to caliper mount too which doesn’t help.