A moment of appreciation for lighter rods here:
One of the reasons that I flyfish is that the experience of casting and probing with a flyline is inherently pleasurable. Some of the techniques we resort to in an effort to reach fish that are deeper, further out, or in heavy current work against the natural grace of a fly cast. Especially heavy clousers and the like -- klunk, klunk, klunk during the cast [and that's when they don't smack you in the back of the head].
Remember that the principle which guided the creation of fly fishing equipment was the need to cast a functionally weightless lure, hence the weighted line.
Right now, in the heavy weather and heavy water that I'm fishing I'm using a 10wt setup exclusively.
But one of my most fun experiences this year was tossing worm flies with an 8wt floater. It was like trout fishing, it was a pure pleasure to lay out line on the water, mend line, work for a natural drift. [It helped, too, that fish ate the things all night long a few times].
I've also ruined days for myself fishing a booming 10wt shooting head in calm water situations where each cast caused more splash and commotion than a 6 oz. sinker cast into a bathtub-sized pool.