I'm just going to answer your question first , then add some food for thought. The question was : "is it worth it to build your own rod".
Depends on your definition of worth. If it's the satisfaction of building the rod your way, rather than just buying a store bought rod....then I'd say absolutley
If your looking to save money and do it fast I'd say .......buy the store bought rod.
Realisticly ......people who build custom rods are not usually trying to save a lot of money. They build for satisfaction, and for the most part try to build a better rod than you can buy off the shelf. Another note of interest is that people get hung up on so called name brand blanks and a lot of times overlook private label ones. It always amazes me that they always seem to limit their search without looking at all the options........Ed