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For what it's worth, I've been using braids since they first came out. PowerPro is now on all my spinning rigs; Suffix mono is on all my conventionals. Braids I've tried over the years are SpiderWire, FireLine, MagiBraid, Ripcord, and PP. I find PP is the best in terms of strength, small diameter, abrasion resistance, but it bleaches out in color very quickly (not an issue to me, though). It'll cut you like a knife if you're not careful pulling a fish out of the water, though.
Biggest problem I had with braids was on reels that have bushings instead of bearings in the line roller in the bail. Bushed rollers seem to roll less often than ones with bearings, so the line slides over the roller more, rather than causing the roller to roll with the line. This is exacerbated by braids that are almost greasy slick and cause less surface tension on the rollers. Further, most of the braids have a flat profile rather than round. They're like ribbon. So, when I was using all Penn SSs and Zs (bushed bearings), I'd get tremendous twists outside the roller, especially when landing a fish. As soon as slack would occur, the twisted line would next wrap onto the reel and then all hell would break loose.
PowerPro is round in profile, like mono. So it has a much lower tendency to twist outside a non-rolling roller. I also gave my Penns to sons-in-law, sons, and grandkids and bought Shimano Sustains, with good bearings in the line rollers but otherwise not as durable as the old Penns. Sustains require a lot of TLC but they are otherwise great reels, for my purposes anyway.
I even use 65# PP as shock leader on monster rods.
For knots, the only one that I haven't had problems with is the uni for attachment, and uni-to-uni for joining lines.
PP hasn't frayed like my SpiderWire and FireLine either. I know that they say the fraying isn't a problem, but I just didn't like it. They would get pretty ratty very fast.
I have almost all 20# PP on everything, with 65# shock leaders on the big rods. I load it myself and buy the biggest spools I can find to keep the per foot costs lower. It's still too expensive.
Last point: Biggest problem with PP and other braids is when you have to join two lines, such as putting a 65# shock leader on the end of, say, a 14#, 17# or 20# main line. That uni-to-uni now will pick up any loose wraps on the reel during a cast, and you instantly have a ball of line around the knot. I've had them pull the ceramic inserts right out of Fuji silicon carbide guides. I have used this stuff enough now that I can tell by the sound of a small clump going through the guides that it's there. And now I just cut it out and retie rather than ignoring it like I used to do.
'Sorry this is so long. Hope it helps someone. Oh, and if you try PP, bring your checkbook!!
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