Jake, I mainly use Shimano. All of my reels are Curado and I have one Core and one Chronarch. All of them are awesome. No problems whatsoever. I bought a Bass Pro Extreme reel last year for $130 and it wasn't very good at all. Noisy on casting and would not cast as far or as smooth as my Curado's. I think even the cheaper Shimano's are better then the Bass Pro reels.
For rods---I also use Shimano's. I have all Crucial rods. I do have a couple of the Skeet Reese rods as I like his cranking rods. The Crucials are a bit too stiff.
But, there are plenty of really good rods out there now.
Good luck.