Those Akios reels look quite interesting I did have a shimano Aerlex 8000 when I first joined this message board it got nicknamed the curse as it would never see any action from a fish so it went on trademe but yet the penn 850ssm has had all the action even when both rods and reels have been soaking a bait at the same time, so I decided that I would just stick with a brand I know and have used since I can remember. Been spending a lot of time trying to find a retailer that stocks penn squall 12 or 15 reels as I also have a 12 foot abu garcia javelin that I bought from the warehouse back in 2007 it always casted like crap and once again when you look at the tip it has small diameter guides and closely spaced together counted around 8 or 9 guides once again I suspect the thing was built for overhead reels not eggbeaters.