it is an age thing. if someone is in their teens or twenties they learn it 2 days. as 30s approach then gets harder, 50s and up good luck. he owns 10 tops of the line spinnings reels and rods, $300 plus, and very hard for to use centerpin. so might as well use something he is good at.
because my reel was in the shop i had to use my spinning reel for trout fishing for the first time in 16 years, it was not as hard as i thought. just had to pay attention to the mend better. centerpin is more of a fad now. without getting into long conversations, unless you are using a good reel, most centerpin are not doing any better job than spinning reels.
have to disagree here bud,
im in my 30's and find i can pick things up and learn faster then when i was younger and always in a rush. patience plays a lot here, and i seem to have gotten more and more as time goes by(fishing also instills patience)
granted, the first couple of days trying to use my pin with nobody to show me was pretty frustrating, after i got it working i was very pleased with it.
as well i see a lot of older fellows picking it up and enjoying it. from talking to a few on the water, many have only recently gotten into it (<3 years) and i dont see them struggling to figure out how to use the thing.
hell, my uncle has been a spinning fisherman his whole life. hes in his 50's now. i recently gave him my pin to try out and he had "good nuff" casts going within an hour and was having a blast with the mechanics of it.
hes now shopping for his own and has told me he doesnt even want to be out there with his spinning setup after trying the pin
i dunno about this "fad" business either... this thing has steadily grown to the point now where i see spinning reels less then any other type of gear on rivers, its usually centerpin majority followed by fly with a very small appearence from spinning setups. i guess we will see..
not that theres anything wrong with spin. it has its place. i used to spin-drift before i got a pin. its a lot more work involved but it gets the job done.
and on lakes its a whole other story
TL;DR
fishing on the pin is fun and rewarding. and even old-timers can do it!