Reverse-wind gear on spinning reels - what's the point?

[Macca]

Hi Guys,
I spend a ton of time fishing from a paddle ski, hunting pelagics. One of my favourite activities is throwing lures at boiling tuna/couta/snoek etc with a light flick-stick and spinning reel.
To date, I've not found a decent reel without a "reverse-wind" lever on it, an this drives me nuts! I have never found any value in this system, and over the past years have had nothing but trouble from these things - either knocking it over by mistake while playing a fish, or casting, or whilst stowing my rods in the hold. Often the bloody mechanism breaks, and then I find that the reel is useless to me.
1. Could someone tell me what the purpose of the reverse-gear option is?
2. Is there a way of permanently disengaging it?
 
Thanks.

[Half-Pint]

Those strange Yanks use it instead of using the drag kind of like a really pricey scarbourgh. If memory serves tge saragosa reels dont have this feature

[Marthin]

http://www.ultimateangling.co.za/index.php?topic=14587.msg234629#msg234629

Unless ive missed it on mine, the penn battle and conflict reels have no reverse handle thing.  No accident waiting to happen or bruized knuckles espeicially on the stuff you are targetting....

[Royboy]

Yup - its my only gripe about my lovely little Stradic 6000. Why oh why do they have it???   

[Macca]

Is there a way of disengaging it perhaps?

[Royboy]

A drop of Superglue can work wonders - LOL!

Cheers, RB

[REEFMAN]

They are there to click the reel into "freespool" without disengaging the Bail arm.

Can be reasonably easily disabled by removing the Anti-reverse Cam Spring. Just make sure after removing the spring that the reel performs the way you want it to, because some reels default into the Freespool mode without the spring.

[Macca]

Thanks Reefman...

[WalkersKiller]

Also a lot of freshwater anglers use the function and backwind when the fish is taking line...