no offense Donny, but split cane rods showed up after the Civil War. They were still pretty new when Doc Henshall published his book in 1881.
The hundreds of years thing were solid wood rods, often using different types of wood for different sections to get tapers, including Doc's 8'3" solid-wood bass rod formula published in 1874.
16'-18' solid wood, 36-44 oz, was a very typical fly rod, and some were even longer - if you were fishing this, I'd call you niche-retro.
here's the whole book - free view
the table of contents will click you to each of the chapters on tackle
there's also a really nice clip feature in some google books and periodicals that lets you extract images
I bought my first two graphite rods in 1984 and '86 - 7-1/2' Browning Hi-Power telescoping blade casting rod (the one-piece blade dropped into the butt below a sleeve ferrule for transport), then Powell Silver Creek IM6 fly rod - still have both rods, but don't use the heavy graphite casting rod any more.
Just shortly before that, '82 or so, bought a new Orvis Fullflex A, though the glass fly rod was admitted rare in Austin Angler stock by then, and they still had Sage glass (through 1990). I wouldn't say graphite dominated the market before 1980, but you're correct about the time it showed up.
There were great glass rods in every niche through the late 70s. (Fenwick Lunkerstik I bought in '78)
I have my prioritized niches for all rod MOCs, with little overlap, but it may be the cane that has a little obstinacy behind it.
To me, glass in the right niche is a no-brainer, because there are configurations where it works better than any other MOC, and you can build glass rod configurations that absolutely don't work in graphite, or even in cane.
And yes, filling that perfect niche for $120 v. $700 is also a no-brainer.
It's never been about retro, it's never been about nostalgia - though it probably does look that way from the outside - it's about being enlightened and understanding the differences to make enlightened choices.
I began buying cane before I returned to glass. That was something else - a $200 rod and $50 reel turned out to be an investment (those $50 reels peaking at $450), and I was closer to the fishing than the insulation of the new $500 graphite rods and $250 disc drag reels that literally took the joy out of fishing for me.
When I returned to glass, it was more or less a curiosity - venerable glass rods on ebay were unbelievably inexpensive then - until I found those rods fit my tight-creek niche much better than cane rods.
My first fly rod, btw, which was my 2nd purchase from high school weekend job in a tire shop, was 9' 8-wt WondeRod, faux bamboo look, bought in 1974, and fished from the salt to Tennessee tailwaters until I bought that Fullflex A. The inked numbers are long-since worn off, but the gold Shakespeare decal is there. (first purchase was a shotgun)
Before that, growing up, Heddon light spinning rod from Gibsons was my first selected tackle at 12 y-o - it got fished in the Rockies, and a Berkley Tri-Sport inshore spinning rod that doubled for a bass rod, I picked when I was 14 with a Mitchell 300.
Something else to keep in mind about fishing tackle and marketing. They sell it to us as technology and there are certainly improvements in complex reel mechanisms. But what they're really selling to us is improved manufacturing and especially reduced manufacturing costs to increase their profit margin - mostly, it's all calculated just to get us to buy one more.
I guess shooting a dime at 75-yds with a falling block .22 and Creedmoor sights is niche-retro,
But I'll never understand the guys who bring ARs to the range simply to pummel their neighbors with brass and hear the noise they're making.
Plus, you can always get on a 75-yd range, and 300-yd ranges for a high-power varmint rifle are tough to come by.