I own a Curado and used to have a Revo SX-L (lefty retrieve) - my Curado is smoother than that Revo, but not by much. That Revo took a LOT of abuse - I switched it up between bass rods and steelhead rods, banged it around rocks, logs, dunked it repeatedly. The sideplates looked kind of rough when I sold it but the internals were like a Swiss watch.
I have a pair of cheapy Diawa Laguna reels - they're $50 reels - and have been mostly happy with them. One of them has given me zero troubles, the other has recently given me some issues with the brakes - I could dial the knobs into the exact same configuration as the 100% good reel, fished it on an identical rod, using similar baits, and kept getting spool over-runs (backlash) - so bad so that I had to completely cut the line and respool twice in one fishing trip with that reel. Almost pitched it into the lake... to be honest though, I didn't originally buy them for casting purposes, I got them to throw on some trolling / jigging rods to fish out of a boat with. But since my boat build has taken 2 years longer than anticipated (boats done, but need to get the trailer operable and get a motor - all of which is back burnered because we're buying a house) I've been using these on some bass rods and also abusing them. I don't think I'd recommend them to someone with the cash for a $!00+ reel but they'd work for someone on a budget who is looking for a baitcaster. For the same cash I'd probably rather get the Abu Garcia SilverMax reel (I have one of those too and it's been solid).
I would be torn if I was in the market for new gear and was going to buy a "good" reel - the Revos and Curados are both really good, as are the higher end Diawas. We're spoiled because 15 years ago there were not nearly the number of GOOD baitcasters to be had, especially decent baitcasters for the entry level market.