Dude, you are over thinking this fishing thing way too hard... 444 steelhead taper or an ambush line and go fishing..
Thinking the same thing - but modern marketing and the need to keep selling stuff means new products. Switch rod - multi-tip - shark skin tip - medium fast super duper semi-sinking line ... oh my.
Progress is good and all but at a few points during my day all I'm looking for is a pole and line with a fish on the end. I read a hilarious story (I think by Dave Huges) about a logger in the '50s who came across a fly rod in the forest. After many attempts to use it and much frustration he began referring to it as "the pecker pole". Oh for a simpler time ....
from the internets --- Thin or sickly in appearance. Pecker Pole - What a logger called a small tree or sapling.
All I need is a decent pecker pole - a double taper line - a hand tied leader - and some fricken flys