A Stick Float rod is designed to be well balanced and pick up line well on the strike without breaking low breaking strain hooklinks.
Because the angler is always holding the rod and constantly mendind the line being light weight and balanced is more important than on any other type of Coarse Fishing rod.
Hitting quick Dace and Roach bites at distance without pulling the hook out or breaking the line requires a good quality rod.
Often stick rods will have a spliced carbon tip which gives them a softer tip action.
Stick float rods have become available in longer lengths with continuing improvements in technology. People have been fishing matches on my local river with 17ft and 20ft rods for meany years now.
Waggler rods are tubular right through and due to the changing nature of modern stillwaters, waggler rods have also changed in nature.
They have become, on average, more powerful to handle the more powerful fish now available in most commercial fisheries.
There are different strengths of waggler rod on the market. Some are more suitable for chucking a 3AA insert waggler accuratley 30 yards and some will lob a baggin' waggler 60 yards.
There is a huge overlap between the two types of rod. In fact hardly any rods are marketed as Stick Float Rods any more.
I think it's more important to match the power of the rod with the tackle and the fish you intend to catch.