Thank you for your replies. So far no one has truly answered my question. Would you make your purchases based on objective testing of your equipment: if ever some independant company did a "True Double Blind Test" on them? And what if after that testing it turned out your favorite high end rod faired no better than a middle of the road one? With all due respect the only information about any equipment one can get, wether it be on this board, or in a magazine, or on a manufacturers site, is anecdotal at best(with the exception of some of the specs they provide), and testamonial in most cases. What that boils down to is this- unreliable information. That is the nature of testimonials and anecdotal information and that is all that any of you have been able to offer.
The reason I used the stereo industry as an example is because in my younger years I used to be into them, and it illustrates my point so nicely. I thought I could hear the difference between $150 amps and $5,000 custom jobs. Then a few enterprising fellows came up with a way to test a number of these jewels against a bunch of golden eared nerds like myself who were convinced they could hear the differences hands down. When the tests where done there were a lot of red faces. In actuality, there was no discernable differences.The same was true for the thousands of $ they spent on cables. One honest manufacturer out there now tells them to use the cheap Radio Shack stuff, if they want to spend more just send them a check for however much they think cable should cost. I'm not saying that will happen in this case with high end fishing rods. That would be foolish. I don't have a crystal ball. But until a true scientific test is set up and run it just cannot be said objectively that one rod is in fact more sensitive than any other rod. You can tell stories all day long about how your expensive rod(s) is in fact so much better than your previous cheaper rod but there is just no way to take your personal prejudice out of the equation. It doesn't mean your judgement is in any way wrong. With a double blind test it forces everyone to be 100% honest about every rod they test and we would get some very surprising results indeed. I can bet that's why it hasn't been done yet. I don't think the top end manufacturers want to really see how their rods would stack up against the other rods out there.