Funny, with all of these technological "improvements" my two favorite rods are a Sage LL and a Gary Lafontaine Stealth, both of them well over twenty years old, and I have had the opportunity to fish many of the latest and most expensive offerings. For that matter I often enjoy fishing with my circa-1946 Wright-McGill Granger. Is it heavier than the latest graphite-boron-unobtainium wonder? Yes. Is it so heavy that that my arm, wrist and shoulder are fatigued to the point of exhaustion at the end of the day? Well, not hardly.