I used to love Shimano reels, then I seemed to develop bail issues with them, one by one.
I've since gone the way of Pflueger, they really do feel different than the Shimano reels I once loved, but thus far they have been problem free. Someone up above also noted the "buy cheap and replace as needed" strategy. Yep...I once got a deal on some Mitchell reels years ago for some jigging rods and didn't even think twice about them until just this spring when the last one finally crapped out on me. Mentioned it to a very avid fishing partner who also bought a bunch of the same reels only to realize we got them roughly 12 years ago. For a $20 reel, that was a damn good purchase!
Anyway, I probably have nearly 20 rod/reel combos nowadays. There's something I liked about every single one of them and how they filled a particular niche or they wouldn't be in the rack. Some were $50 combos, some were worth closer to a couple hundred, but they each still fill a niche. I find I like line-counter reels a lot nowadays when fishing with the kids, by giving them a number I help ensure they have the crank or BB in the strike zone. Nothing worse than seeing a kid pull a BB around for an hour about ten ft up off the bottom. Speaking of which, I could probably use another BB rod/reel combo.