Dave,
I did the pin thing for a while. From my time I spent doing it I will tell you 11.5' is about the shortest you want to get if you are fishing smaller rivers. The longer the rod the easier it is to mend the line to get the drag-free drift you are after. Mono is all I ever used (suffix siege) and never had a problem with it. If your wallet is too full you can get the Siglon float lines or Ultima float lines which are really nice. There are line dressings that you can run your line through to aid in floating but regular mono is usually just fine on it's own. floatfishnconnection and swatske (usernames on youtube) are going to be your best bets for learning the casts. Dominic Federico at Infinity Rod Creations is one of the main driving forces behind centerpinning in the US. http://www.floatfishingconnection.com/ is the main website that I have found for the biggest group of people in one spot that do it. I started with the Okuma Aventa combo and it worked perfectly for me for learning and fishing and it cost me 200 dollars. That rig will easily take you from beginner to near expert without having to upgrade. I tried the Ross Flow and it is a nice reel. It is sort of a tweener in price and value between the entry-level reels and the high-end handbuilt ones. I ultimately ended up with a 4.5" Adcock Stanton reel and a custom rod built on a Batson XST blank and I don't think that setup has any peers but centerpin reels are really really really really really addictive, you can't own just one!