I believe Sparky is referring to the small yet vocal group who take offense when a person fails to have a religious experience with a fly line :hehe:
That being said, I have fallen in love with the line too after having spent many more hours casting it. I still can't cast the whole head with the 10150-4 brown, but I recall I had no trouble doing it with the Burkie at the Sandy Clave. Still I love my 10150-4 with the right length of it (75-80 feet?) and with several other lines, it's as smooth as butter with a well-matched line. Wading ankle deep made a huge difference verses wading waist deep too. The whole time I was thinking about Steve casting that whopping distance in the UK - that keeps me inspired to work harder while also trying to find a rod/match for it, etc.
I just sent it to the next member for trials on the water in the pacific northwest, so I'll now be buying the XLT in a range of weights and match them with my rods and casting preferences (I prescribe to Dec Hogan's philosophy of line speed and easy casting for the purpose of catching fish first and foremost, if I understood his words right at the Sandy Clave between chuckling at his entertaining jokes and demonstrations!).
I won't stop using my Windcutter, deep winter heads, MidSpeys, Accelerator, good ol' DTFs and soon to be obtained long delta Spey, but I will definitely enjoy fishing the XLT. Great choices - isn't life grand?
I truly appreciate Bruce letting us have this line to play with. Hopefully we in the forum can get more gear (of all sorts perhaps) in the future to experiement with this way. The extra time I had with the line that I would not have had at the flyshop or flyfishing show casting pool sure sold me! I will be showing my gratitude with my dollars at the flyshop.
BTW - Rick, awesome replies to those questions!