What kind of budget are you looking at? For many years I used to hunt grunters in estauries with an Elbe Blue Crystal 7' rod and a Shimano Sienna 2500 reel with 15lb Gatorbraid. I loved that setup and caught tons of fish with it, only recently did I decide to retire it and upgrade, but I still have the setup and I'm keeping it for when my son is old enough to start learning.
That entire setup cost me around R700 or so, but that was a while ago, not sure how much it would set you back nowadays. The rod is light, with a crisp, fast action and enough backbone to handle even the biggest grunts and mid-size kob and leeries. The reel is good value for money imo, not the greatest reel out there, but it gets the job done and with a bit of tlc it will last a very long time (I've had mine for about 5 years now and it's in perfect shape).
That outfit, with the 15lb braid throws lures up to 3/4oz with no hassles. Regarding the wind knots, the size of the reel shouldn't have too much effect. The most common reasons are overfilling the spool, poor cast technique (usually bad timing) or if you fish into a stiff cross wind or head wind, especially with light lures, you will quickly understand where the name wind knot comes from.
I mention this setup because you said you don't want to spend money on a stradic, so I'm assuming you have a small budget. There are of course many other options and probably some that are better than this too.