Paul,
BINGO !!!
The presentation is under the casters control not the rod's.
"Killing" or adding power can be accomplished at the stroke end by manipulating the rod tip.
Adding a pull back increases the roll over velocity, landing the fly with authority if needed, and a drift will reduce it allowing the fly to flutter to the water.
This can be done with all fly rods of any line weight. It's actually easier with a fast rod, but the timing needs to be correct.
The key to presentation is casting "PRACTICE".
The guy that throws the whole fly line and lands without a ripple isn't lucky, just well rehearsed.

Paul:

If this is the only requirements ...."Small creek ... 30 ft .....7-8x".... Then you could drop to a 6 1/2 ft, 2 wt. and do that easily. Batson makes a nice one in 2 or 4 piece. I've built a few of the 4 piece as pack rods for the east coast "jungle brookie fishing" guys. Not exactly slow, but considering the length of leader and short distance, I think it would work just as well for you. The RX6 is a beautiful translucent dark blue and you can't beat the price. Wish they made it in 1 wt.

I am apologizing to Paul as the message I am going to drop in here is probably irrelevant to him and off topic, as it could have not much to do with the subject he lauched or what he currently thinks about some insights he got from the others as being what he might look for/need, but I don't know how else I could reply to John:

If I remember correctly, in the CCS data offered on mudhole for the mhx fly blanks, there was a $64.0 6ft6in 3 piece blank listed with an ERN of 1.28 (F662?3?MHX). The AA is 60. I don't know if you would be interested or if this is new information or not, but I thought that dropping this line by, would help.