I am building a 9' casting steelhead/salmon rod. How much more effective is the concept system for a casting setup? Also do you have to use fuji's concept guides or could I use Pac Bay single foot fly guide towards the end of the rod and boat guides near the handle? The fuji Alconite guides are more expensive than say a pac bay Hialoy guide by double.

In terms of using the system for a casting rod, it is mainly intended to lower the overall weight of the rod by substituting more, yet smaller and lighter guides, particularly on the tip area of the rod. Less weight that the rod has to carry results in more of your imparted energy being used to cast the rod. The rod will react and recover more quickly.

You can use any guides you like but should try to keep them as small and light as practically possible. This is where the benefits are found - in having a lighter rod which in turn is more responsive on all fronts.

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The Alconite guides are claimed to be 35% lighter, due greatly in part to the decreased amount of cermaic material in each guide. The tip tops are alot lighter as the barrel is about an 1/8" shorter than the standard tip top, combined with the light ceramic and the possible reduced size 6mm ring that is offered, down from the standard 7mm ring, can bring down the weight substancially...then the lead in tip section guides can be 6mm also. The cost will be about $12-15 for Hailoy/Hardloy and $24-28 for Alconite, but the ceramic mateial is superior to Pac Bay Hailoy or Fuji Hardloy. Lots of buildes are using them as the far more expensive SIC alternative is approx $5 a guide, I like using the rarier Chrome Alconites (CLYG, CLAG) that will cost a shade more. Alconites in general are approx 80% more than the alternative Fuji Hardloy, near 100% over Pac Bay Hailoy's.
One trick of Concept Guiding (Alconite Blk frames) is that the 1st few guides on a spinning rod utilizes high frame guides BLYG 25, 16, 12, 8, BLAG 8, 7, 6,6,6.... 6mm Tip Top. If opting for Hailoy/Hardloy entry level grade ceramic guides You can use a High frame guides, then regular framed guides, then ceramic ringed single foot big water fly guides, (always down sizing rings over the ferrule) All come in black by Fuji/Pac Bay that is what I did before the quiant notion of concept guiding became so popular. Now it is hard to find any other color guide frame in all three styles. Pac Bay does make a high frame in gold, but the frame is higher and the ring smaller than Fuji's high frames so where I might want to always start with a size 25 guide, using those Pac Bay gold high frames, I start with a 30. And there are no gold framed ceramic ringed single foot fly guides to finish off the series (large to small) so I use tig-gold single foot wire fly guides Sz. 4 & 3...down to a wire ring size that matches the tip ring mm dia.