Applicable? Well that's up to the individual. Expensive? again, what are you looking to achieve? You mentioned SiC's. I'm picking on you just for a reference, nothing personal. Silicones are expensive too. Then look at your set-up and think mass. If you don't think mass plays a part, try tying on a balloon on your tip and try casting the rod. Balloons weight nothing but to prove an exaggerated point, mass will affect your rods performance. Too much thread, epoxy too thick, too many guides or too big and it will make a difference. The further towards the tip, the more it effects the rod. Why worry? Well, we don't have to but I think our goal is to build the best rod that we can and make it the most efficient to boot. As for the cost, I'm not sure where you find that price but my price is cheaper, but then again I get items at wholesale.
My thoughts for a small stream rod might be different than yours, or anyone else's. I'll go out on a limb and say the rod is 5 foot. I've built shorter and longer but that seems to be the standard.--whoever picks standards!!! My thoughts are a "fast tip" if anyone wishes to explain what they feel a fast tip is. A tip that gives a softer feel for a short distance and is prone to tip bounce, is a pretty good explanation for the layman. The tip needs to have very little in the way of weight or mass attached to this. When looking at the Microwave guides, your first guide will be a #20 with a #6 encased inside of that. This narrows the line down to begin it's straight forward motion. Just like a bullet, lines have to travel straight to travel further. the more wobble, the less distance. You mentioned about the line coming into contact with a guides, the more contact, the slower the line. With that theory, we should attach #30 guides all the way up the rod. No touch. This was not an uncommon thought years ago. It was once said that "bigger is better" and that still rings out with some folk. Science, cameras and photography shows this not to be the case any more. A lot of R&D has gone into that and it has been found that smaller is better but more importantly, making the line get into a straight forward path as soon as it gets off the reel is the most important. Back to the Microwaves. the first is 20/6, then a #6 and then #4 from the up to the tip. Very good set-up for any rod. Length of the rod has nothing to do with it. Sounds like a bold statement--and it is. After the third guide from the reel, the rest of the guides are just there to continue guiding the line down the path of the blank. It's impossible to say that the longer the rod, the better the guides work. Each rod has in it, a distance the rod will cast a line. Once that distance is reached, that's it. the longer the rod, the further that distance will be. That's why we have 10-12 foot rods for surf fishing. How we get that distance and the amount of energy we use to reach that goal will depend on the guide train. Long story huh??
Anyway to answer that question is yes. It is applicable. You already snap your wrist to make that cast. The less fatigue you endure the longer you will stay on the water. Anything that I can do to make my rod more comfortable is worth every penny.
Now here is the monkey wrench. My small streams rod(s) (personal) have Recoil guides on set at #16,#8,#4,#4,#4,#4,tip is #4. My personal rod will cast just like a rod with Microwaves on it. But that was only after fine tuning my guides to mount at the best location after trail and error. Microwaves take the guess work out of doing that.
Big D