I'm confused: are you looking for a leger (mostly) rod to fill the gap between your carp rod and your medium feeder rod, or a float (mostly) rod to go between the feeder rod and your pole?
Are your chub and barbel in a sweet little soft-weeded, clay-bottomed river like the Lea (where an "Avon" combo will handle most jobs) or a hairy-assed torrent with dead-badger-sized rocks all over it , like ( apparently) the Ribble - in which case you'll need a long, strong heavy feeder rod?
Is your canal fishing going to be for non-carps from gudgeon up to medium bream, or chub and the occasional carp? Is it a big shipping canal, or a tiny, shallow cut for narrow-boats?
No rod is going to cushion 12 oz hooklengths AND heave a big feeder to the middle of the Trent or Tidal Thames!
"When I was a lad" the nearest to a "universal " rod was the Nottingham pattern, 11-feet -ish, whole cane butt, split-cane middle and tip. Too beefy for tiddlers, too light to cast more than about 1.5 oz, (and that, gently), but OK for anything between 4 oz dace and the old barbel record of 14 lb 6 oz.
The carbon equivalent is probably a "Match carp waggler" type rod of 11-13 feet; take a look at the Drennan Red range or the Grandeslam Academy float rods. they'll cope with LIGHT legering, but you'll have to use a sidewinder, butt-indicator , bobbin or touch to detect most bites.
Leeda and Shakespeare rods are also usually good value, but you have some big decisions to make, it seems.
---------- Post added at 07:59 ---------- Previous post was at 06:03 ----------
A thought - the old (glass) Hardy Matchmakers were famous,iirc, for absorbing abuse; I seem to recall someone grumbling that he'd wrecked one beachcasting!!!
A scruffy "user" from ebay might be worth a punt.
