Gary Cooper trolls the salt using a Sage flyrod with a downrigger and monofilament loaded up on his Islander reel. I personally wouldn't subject any of my flyrods to downrigger work with mono...the salt and the constant tight tension on the monofilament must wear through those poor chrome snake guides fairly quickly. There are lots of lighter, or maybe even custom mooching rods out there that will flex just as nice as a 9wt flyrod...but have the proper ceramic eyes that can take the abuse. The LX3.6 reel I can understand, because it's probably a lot lighter than many of the large mooching reels out there...and the machined and anodised aluminum doesn't care what it's loaded with.
To each their own, I guess...I don't have corporate sponsors giving me gear, so I have to take good care of my own. ;D