That part about 8 feet being the absolute max for ag fence sounds about right. I saw a YouTube video from a ranch in Nebraska where they did 10 foot spacing and the whole line was waving like a jump rope by the end of the season. Wet ground just makes it worse, those posts can't hold tension with gaps that wide.

Whoa hold on, you might be confusing those with the red box ones. The blue box rods actually have a different flux formula that's supposed to run a little smoother on AC machines. I burned through a whole 10 pound box of those last summer and the coating seemed pretty even to me. But yeah, cranking the heat up a bit does help with arc starts if your machine can't push enough juice.