Old Salt, you're not alone.

After years of "rental" canoe paddles, I bought a Grey Owl (wood) bentshaft, and it was love at first stoke. It might weigh a bit more than today's state-of-the-art carbon-fibre jobs, but to me, it felt light as a feather. The extra power you get from the bend makes straight-shaft paddles feel like a car running on three cylinders.

The only drawback to bentshafts I've found is when soloing a tandem canoe in the wind: the extra reach you get with a straight shaft seems to make a significant difference to course-correcting strokes.

All that being said, I also have a wood Redtail "Ottertail Deluxe", C$35 from MEC. It's a great paddle too, and still head-and-shoulders above those old brick s'house rentals. Gotta love that Redtail grip design too.

So the bottom line is it's all about priorities. The more you spend, the more you get, but with canoe paddles, the law of diminishing returns kicks in at a very low price range.