I had an opportunity to cast one of the six weights a while back and was quite pleasantly surprised. The six would, in my humble opinion, be best for a beginner simply from the aspect of learning to cast. Plenty of feed back and forgiveness. Eight would probably be OK for learning as well but, as mentioned above, would be overkill for most fishing. Landing a bluegill on an eight weight is not too much fun, at least as much as on lighter tackle.

That sums up my opinion.