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OK, I have to chime in on this since I have this rod and have been fishing it for the past 2 seasons. I built the rod on a 4pc blank and love it.

I think Fred pretty much nailed the Fenwick similarity as well as possible for you, but everyone's mileage varies a little.

I fished mine as a 6wt for the first year, but have used it about equally with 6wt and 5wt lines this year. This rod is a wonderful combination of smoothness, versatility and tippet protection.
- I have fished mine a lot on lakes with 6wt full sinking lines and have caught a lot of fish including some very big ones. I've been amazed several times at the combination of tippet protection and power in landing good sized fish. The rod would probably fish 5wt sinking lines fine as well, but I happen to have a larger selection of 6wt sinking lines spooled up, so that is what I've been using. With full sinking lines being smaller in diameter, I think "overlining" is generally even easier than with floating and sink tip lines, in any event.
- I have fished mine with a DT6F, DT5F and WF5F lines, and am still not settled on what is the best line weight. I agree with a couple of posts in this thread (Fred's reply that compared to the Fenwick FF856, the Steffen is more of a 5wt....and Gypsy's reply that the Steffen casts comfortably with both 5wt and 6wt lines).

While my rod will easily make short casts with a 5wt line, if I were primarily fishing shorter distances I would fish it as a 6wt. For all around fishing I could fish 5wt lines and be perfectly happy. But since this rod handles a variety of 5wt and 6wt lines so well, it really adds to the versatility. At the end of September, I made a short trip to Montana and was fishing 6wt sinking lines on a lake and catching a good number of 2 lb. + grayling one day (as well as lots of smaller fish)...then fishing a DT5F and WF5.5F (SA GPX) the next day and fooled several bigger cutthroat finesse fishing size 16 dries in shallower runs on a big river...even caught some good sized whitefish and decent sized cutthroat dead drifting nymphs with split shot (chuck and duck).

This rod is smooth, a true pleasure to cast and fish, but also very versatile. Personally, I think Mark Steffen really nailed the taper on this model.

Anyway, this is just my opinion on this rod. All the best.