They look cool and other boats think you no what your doing,have not ever had a braid cut ,although i really only use one and that is the left one or the hand holding the rod doesn't feel correct to wind with one on.Dad seems to use both gloves when using an overhead reel ,one thing i did notice on the JM rods is that the line is really close to the stick you would want to make sure you had your gloves on when jigging with theses rods i think the first eye is only a #20 ,don't know if this is good or bad but the T-Curve 400 starts with a #40 did not really sus this out before i brought them and don't really have much experience with whats wright or wrong referring to eye sizes.