Lure/weight and bait ratings are merely a subjective opinion of what the rod blank will carry, there is no science behind it, anymore than there is in the rating companies put on flyrods. Take it out and play with it, just like they do, and find your own high and low limits.
Rarely will a blank fail due to excessive weight use, it's response just carrying the static weight will tell you well in advance that you have a problem. If you had gone to the rodbuilding get together Lamiglas sponsored this spring you'd have learned some very positive attributes about the Si blanks that would have reduced your concerns considerably.

The reason that we did not put the lure rating on the new Si series is because the rods are designed for the most technical and advanced steelhead fisherman and we also want these rods to be multifaceted. For instance, take the SI 94 M. You could drift fish, throw spinners, swing spoons and bobber fish if need be. Now under most circumstances you would never be using more than 1/2 ounce of lead, so the lure rating would be something like 1/4-1/2 oz. But if you consider the weight of the pencil lead, swivel, hook and bait you could be pushing 3/4 ounce. Now the fisherman would be over loading the rod according to the "ounce rating". We all know that that is not over loading the rod but the rating says that it is. So the lure rating becoms sort of a mute point now because if you follow the actual lure rating provided on the rod, most fisherman would have a hard time casting the little amount of lead that the rod "says" it is designed for. How about a spoon. Most often we use the 2/5 ounce size but there are times when the 2/3 ounce is what you require to get down. So do you not use the spoon because your rod says only up to 1/2 ounce? Of course not you tie that baby on and swing away. You will find that rods only have lure rating as a generalization. Not as a rule that you can only use this amount of lead and nothing more.

As you mentioned you are an accomplished fisherman and you know your limits as far as casting weight goes. So we wanted to offer a series of rods for fisherman just like you. To the fisherman who wants the upper hand when it comes to sensativity and performance. Typically those fisherman do not need the lure rating to help them out when they are buying a new rod. Now if a begining steelhead fisherman wants to purchase one of the Si rods than that is great and he wont regret it but we figured that not many people just getting into steelhead fishing are going to be dropping $400 dollars on a first time rod. Now if they want to than that is awesome but the reatlity is that hardly any will. So to answer your question in a long winded sort of way. We will not be offering the Si series of rods with a lure rating.

The mix up you are talking about on the Kenai Kwick you own was actually not a mix up from the beggining. It was rated 1-4 as a general rule for the fisherman on the Kenai who are using jumbo divers and kwickfish or eggs. Once we introduced the rod up there we soon realized that we had the perfect rod for the north west trolling fisheries so we changed the rating to 1-8 which falls into the weight catagory for most of our fisheries here in the northwest. Most rods have lure rating for certain application verses what the rod can actually handle. For instance we fish the XCC 934 and XCC 1064's in astoria with 16ounces of lead plus a spinner or herring and a flasher which would weigh somewhere around 17 or 18ounces. The rods "Lure rating" is not rated for that amount of lead but it can handle is when trolling. Hope this helps clear up any confussion.