Reel quality versus bearing count

[pro reel]

The recent editon of BASS magazine has an article about bearings and why reel quality is more important than bearing count.I thought i might be able to explain this better with some pictures. I just finished working on a Bass pro shop Royal Express reel. I hate to mention this reel because I don't want to bash BPS reels. You have probably heard me say that BPS makes some very good reels and has some that are the best bang for the buck there is. That's still true, but like all brands, they also sell some junky reels. This is one of those junky reels.
The royal express is an 8 bearing reel. You might be surprised to know it , but they actually use some of the best bearings you can get. However, placement of the bearings and overall quality of the rest of the reel is way more important. In the first picture you will see that this is a plastic composite framed reel. Plastic composite framed reels are not even close to the same quality of most aluminum framed reels, but some aluminum framed reels are also junk, it really depends on the tolerance they build them to. In the next picture you will see the line guide components, notice that they used plastic bushings on both ends. These are not even good quality plastic bushings and are prone to get loose and sloppy. Many reels that use plastic bushings here are actually very high quality and will last a lifetime. BPS could use bearings here and this reel would be a bit better, but it would still not even be close to a reel such as a Citica with half the bearings. In the next picture you will see the inside of the handle knob. here is where they used 4 of the 8 bearings this reels has. It's actually a nice handle on a junky reel, however, it doesn't help this reel any at all other than to make the handle feel better to use. In the next picture you will see the pinion gear clutch components. Notice how the pinion gear sits in a yoke that slides up and down on posts. The yoke has angled sides that site against the angled sides of the clutch. Notice that there is a big gap between these angled areas of the yoke and the clutch. That's because the parts were not built worth a darn and the tolerance is horrible. This is one of the reasons that the bearing count doesn't mean anything for this reel, the rest of the reel is junk and will still be junk no mater how many bearings they use. Now, this next picture is the side plate. Notice the plastic bushing under the tension cap. That's one of the 3 spool shaft supports. That should be a bearing, so why does this reel have 8 bearings but still has a plastic bushing on the spool shaft? Because they put the 8 bearings in places that make the reel feel smoother in the store, that's why. With these reels, you can move up to a nine bearing model and get the 3rd bearing for the spool shaft. Now, in the last picture you will see the inside of the tension cap. Notice that the disk has a divot in the center. That's because they used cheap plastic disks for the tension shims in the cap and under the bearing in the other side of the reel. This reel would have cast pretty good when it was new, but soon after that, the spool shaft would start to drill into those plastic disks and that drastically increases the friction on the ends of the spool. A quality reel would have ceramic fiber disks. Again, this shows that you could use a dozen or more bearings in this reel, but if you save a few pennies by using cheap parts in other places, it will still be junk.
Now. I want to stress that all brands sell some junk reels. I'm not bashing BPS reels, just this one reel. In fact some BPS reels such as the current model of the pro qualifier are some of the best reels available. One thing that's interesting though is that all BPS reels use some of the very best bearings available.