I am a huge fan of these sticks, or rods.  They work great for having laid back quiet practices where we don't have to blow our ear drums out just to work on song arrangements.  Also I use them at gigs for warmups and setup fine tuning.  I can test my setup and make sure I got everything where I want it without disturbing the patrons and whatever crappy song they have on the jukebox.  I generally don't have a use for them during the gig itself, but if you play softer stuff, I'm sure they would work great.