Ray,

I really can't answer in any technical way. The one thing that, or at last it seemed like for awhile, the different manufacturers tried was to get as close to a weightless rod as they could. I'd like to ask you, you wrote, " Why does a new $500 rod cast better than a $100 version?" Do you really think so? I've always been of the opinion that the caster makes the rod. Not the other way around. Example: I built a rod that on a very good day I might cast about 75 feet. I asked a friend, who is an excellent caster(teaches at the Wulff school) to cast the rod. He proceeded to lay out a cast of 123 feet. I can honestly use that figure because I measured it. So same rod, which by the way cost me less then $75 total, had dramatically different results when used by different casters. Oh, and he liked the rod too.

Allan