Limiting my comments to Sage rods, he recently discontinued Sage VPS and the RPL were built on the same blank I think. The 9wt VPS was a very nice rod. While I prefer my old RPLX and the new Xi2, I found the VPS 9wt to be a very comfortable rod. You may be able to find one at a discount. The Sage Launch or FLi may fit your requirements also.

Earlier in my FF experince I found that I had trouble casting certain rod/line/fly/weather combinations without altering my casting stroke or "style" and I shopped for different rods for different conditions. Angling experience showed me that nothing worked in all conditions. For example, if I'm casting big flies on a 9wt rod I would need to adapt to different fishing conditions during the day - I might need a low backcast and an open loop with a following wind or a very tight loop, even with large heavy flies, directly into the wind. Or I might need a different casting stroke with a full length floating line vs a leadcore shooting head. I ended up just practicing my casting regularly so that I can comfortably use just about any reasonable rod/line combo in any conditions I might encounter with that combo (thus giving up one excuse for needing more rods).