It seems to me that there is a consenus that fishing as much lead as alot of us do is not that necassary.

There is a techinque that the Stilly ole-timers practice that is known as drift-plunking. They literally throw up onto the bank with a large amount of lead and 'backbounce' there drift gear through the slot. The Stilly though is a very 'slotty' river where you have 1' foot of water 90% of the distance out and then it drops down to a 4'-8' slot. This type of water does not lend itself to the swing that well as once your gear starts swinging to the inside it is out of the zone.

On the other hand there are many rivers that have wide runs with a consistent depth across the river and these may be the rivers they fish better with less lead where you are swinging your gear in and rarely touching the bottom. How often do flyguys 'bounce' bottom while swining flies?? They catch fish...