My buddy bought one. He's into reels and taking them apart. He looked at the Abu and the Omoto side by side, and explained to me all the shortcuts in quality Omoto took to make their reel so they could sell it cheaper.
His opinion - that the Omotos are cheap crap, that they disguise with shiny colors and nice handles to get guys who don't know any better to buy them. If you only fish once or twice a month, your Omoto will prob last forever. But if you fish every night, my friend claims they will blow up because they are not built to handle big fish. So catch all the small blues you want with them and be happy. When you blow it up on a 40 or 50# bass and lose the fish of a lifetime, don't say you weren't warned. Sorry I don't agree with you on your opinion r-plugger.