The biggest benefit of wood is the ability to have it turned and tapered to your exact specs. If u have a favorite shaft. U can measure it (everything... taper. . diameter length... ferrule..material and length.. overall weight hell even grain count. give the specs to a cue maker and he can match it all pretty damn close.
There are increasing options to get fully customized CF shafts. Also, there is a wide enough selection of CF shaft designs, where one can pretty much get whatever one wants. To me, it's actually the opposite issue - the dependability & consistency of CF is the best part. Once I found a CF that I really liked, its just $400 and a few mouse clicks to get another exact mirror copy to my door in one week. In my experience, falling in love with a custom wood shaft is a painful journey, because if/once it gets dinged, damaged, etc - it can be super hard & maybe impossible to get another one with same exact feel.
I think similar to politics & religion, some folks think of shafts only as two binary camps; wood vs CF… the reality is there are all types of deflection, energy transfer, balance & feel variables among all of the different makes, models, and materials. There are super low deflection wood shafts and CF shaft with plenty of deflection... Also, some people seem able to adapt quickly to new shafts, for others changing shafts is a painful 6+ month experience.
Generally speaking, I think its always been quite hard to get a traditional maple shaft with 12.5mm diameter (or smaller) with a long pro taper to play stiff & solid. Possible, but very hard & takes really special maple & talented cue builder. CF materials & newer wood shaft building techniques (eg Keilwood, laminates, radial splices, CF cores) makes these tradeoffs much easier, and has opened up a much broader range of features & performance variables that can be designed into a cue.
Its curious to me why such pro & anti CF passion exists in the pool world; do people feel this passionate about joint materials or cue length? Are there folks out there who care & ask how many pros use steel joints vs ivory, vs phenolic? Or big pins vs small pins? Or 58, vs 59 vs 60, vs 64” extra long cues? We see huge diversity of equipment prefs among the pros, clearly there is no magical material, feature or style that rises above the rest…
I play in all sorts of locations and am a bit rough on my cues, so the biggest draw to CF for me was the fact that CF is essentially immune to dings. After trying all the major ones over a 6 mo period or so, I settled on the Cynergy 12.5. Its exactly the specs I like and to me it feels & sounds not much different than wood and plays pretty similar to a 314v2. I had essentially zero adjustment time, liked it immediately. I now have 3 of them; one with 3/8-10 on my playing cue that lives in my truck, one with 5/16-14 on my playing cue at the house and another 3/8-10 as a backup. All look/feel/sound/play identical, are in perfect like -new condition after 2 years of abuse, and I’m never without when getting a new tip etc.
For me, CF does have some drawbacks; can’t do minor masse and jump shots with it, which I normally do with any maple player. So I grab house cues and use a jump cue more than I ever did before. Also due to the very stiff CF hit, I’ve migrated to softer tips which require more maintenance and don’t last as long. I find both of those issues annoying but still prefer the overall durability/consistency advantages of the CF. Those are my pros/con tradeoffs - this same calculus may not apply for someone else.
Try new stuff, or don’t try stuff. Find something you like, according to what criteria matters most to you, and enjoy it. If you like it, no need to proselytize it to others. If you hate it, no need to demonize it to others.
Go play pool.
