Fly rods are personal choices. Cost always enters in at some point nobody wants to pay for a ferrari and get a pinto. Even big name rod companies make a few less than stellar rods. the Winston BIII SX is an expensive rod from a fine rod company in the above list yet it ranked 19 out of twenty in performance as evaluated by Yellowstone. Based on the Yellowstone analysis the Loop Opti Stream ranked # 2 out of the 20 5wts and looks like the best combination of performance and bang for the buck. I really don't have a horse in this race. I like the rods I have and it is unlikely i will buy another rod any time soon. i apologize the format of the table didn't copy well into this forum