First I want to know why Todd is making fun of my truck!
OK, mine is a Toyota but too many similarities to let it pass.

Truth is I am one of those people who takes satisfaction in not buying Uber stuff and finding value goods that perform - here value is defined as Cost/Performance not absolute price.

Would definitely spend more/purchase higher up the ladder in a relative sense, for a fly rod because its function is a much bigger part of the day and experience.

But for gear rods not so much. I have some GL3's that I bought when they were a new thing - $325 in the mid 90's, so that might have been Uber at the time. Have never felt that I needed something more than those for performance. Recent purchases have been sub $100 - pair of Berkley/buzz ramsey plug rods that I think are fine (not awesome).

For me, high end rods are not very attractive because I have a history of being hard on rods - and not in a good way. I have probably broken 8 or 9 rods over the years and only one was what I considered a warranty issue suffered while actively fishing. Car door, tailgate, anchor, fall.... While I have personal rituals and rules to manage some of these, and have had only one such event in the last 15 years (2 months ago), it would give me pause personally.

In some ways I think Todd has the right of it - does someone who actually bought a $600 rod regret buying it? And that is a little bit different than those of us who have not saying we would not - even if you have fished with someone else's. That is not to say that you might not find a high end rod that performs so badly that you are sure you would never buy it or feel OK with it if you had bought it - but the OP question,to me, was "is incremental performance worth that kind of money?" - Not "would you buy a crappy expensive rod?" although from some of the comments it would seem such an animal does exist.