Warren's post about high end rods out fishing mid-priced rods reminded me of a story...

Last summer I was fishing with the guy I mentioned above, Stan, who only fishes Sage (and is a very good caster, by the way). I forget all the details but we were throwing double nymph rigs which were quite heavily weighted. I was having a devil of a time making acceptable casts with my low-end rod and commented that I just wasn't able to cast this rig very well.

Stan asked to try my rod. After about 2 false casts, Stan lets go with a cast (with a rod he had never touched before) that was better than any cast I had made all day. He turned to me and said, "This rod will cast that rig just fine. You just need to put a little power to it." My reply to him was, "I never said the ROD couldn't cast it. I said I couldn't cast it."

My point being I think it has as much, if not more to do with the person holding the rod as the rod itself.