I'm glad a lot of people believe this because it leaves fish for me! Overhanging trees, wind, summer sun, the seam on the other side, light lures, and light line are all situations where spinning rods excel, especially from the bank. I bank-fished a home-stretch of a local river yesterday for the first time with my 1084c and was surprised at how much less I could effectively fish because of overhanging trees. My usual spinning rod is actually 6 inches longer, but is much easier to flip adequate casts out with. Casting rods have an advantage with drag, but that gap is not as big as it used to be. As far as the gears being weak; that's true to a point (I had a big steelhead break a drive gear on a Stradic 2000 once), but the smoothness a quality reel provides allows you to crawl a spinner or spoon at the perfect speed, without losing sensativity, which is huge for a hardware angler.

As far as what to look for, I think Twitch's post is right on. Make sure you look at the Lami X96JS (more of a drift rod IMHO) and the XMG series. A lot of people prefer a shorter, faster casting rod for drift fishing and longer, slower spinning rod for float fishing.

Good luck!