Is it just me, or is there no good place to hook your swimbait to your rod with some of today's reels?

One combo I use a lot of my Okuma Heavy with a Calcutta 400TE. I filed off the hook keeper on the rod because my line would wrap on it occasionally. None of the wire hookeepers I've used worked anyway because when you get a small amount of slack in the line, the lure comes free. Both the Okuma and the Kistler rods I have with these type of keepers do this.

The rubber hook keepers like the ones that come on the Castaway rods just get in the way of your hand holding the rod, I removed all of those from my rods too. So irritating! And with the big stuff, I don't want to hook my bait to the foot of a guide because the barb of a big 8/0 hook will scratch up the rod.

On some reels like the original Curado you have plenty of room to hook any size hook over the foot of the reel but the thumbar on the CTE400 makes it all but impossible to this.

The more I thought about this, the more I feel like the solution should be integrated into the reel seat. Like on a right hand retrieve reel, what if on the left side of the foot of the reel, there was a graphite or composite ring right above the foot, tucked away in a place where your hand would never hit it? This seems like such a basic thing to have a place to hook your bait but it seems like no reel mfgrs take this into consideration. Has anyone seen any add on device like this before? Any reel mfgrs out there who want to make their reels like that? :) The idea is free for the taking, I'm just tired of having no place to hook my swimbait beside the reel handle where it chews up my knobs.