Ben, if you have a brand newie 2009 model, you should not even need to think about this. Even if you want to convert to carbontex, you can't as the carbontex washer you buy from Smooth Drag are made to match the old steel washers, not the new. In any event, irrespective of what Daiwa choose to call their new drag washers, they sure look like carbontex.
The main reason why people had to change their drags was the perception that it wasn't up to it for high drag pressures. The drag would sometimes stick and in some cases, ultimately jam under high pressure. It did not perform once it was "running" as some of them would have jammed by that stage. Like with a lot of things you read on the internet particularly with regard to equipment failure, this issue assumed absolutely legendary status and I think the number of really serious incidences were significantly lower than what many of us read. I myself only know of a small number of cases where I know the angler personally who experienced this. Of course, that is countered by the fact that many of us never even gave this a chance to happen by changing the drag washers out of the box immediately. The old drag performed fine in many cases too, (to be fair) as I had friends who continued to use the factory drag.
In any event, the new drag looks to be exemplary.
