I'm a firm believer that some people can get great rear delts from rowing and pulling, but others ... not so much.
Anytime I stumble upon a DC-oriented forum, someone like the guy who calls himself "Sammich" (who, in all fairness, seems to have some titles under his belt) rather rudely blows off newbies and says, "Come back to us when you can row 400 and dead 600 for reps."
That's cute, but totally unrealistic advice for, say, a natural guy or low-dose dude who's trying to stay in the lightweights or middleweights.
You know, almost HALF the bodyweight most men who use those weights, at least in good form, do.
Besides, I've done the whole "see how strong you can get with good form" bullshit. I could do Penrows with 315, no belt, no straps, for maybe 6-8 when I did them religiously (ironically, as part of a DC-style set-up, which I still follow).
I grant I was 240+ and in no shape to tell if I had "awesome rear delts" :roll:, but I knew well enough to see that the rowing and shit, no matter how strict or heavy, just wasn't getting the job done. Same said for shoulder presses. Ok, so you can press 300 behind the neck. Congratulations. What do your delts look like?
I'm convinced the isolation exercises so many guys shit on are more or less the key to bringing up small bodyparts like the lateral and rear delts. And it doesn't have to be completely foo-foo stuff, either. That Mountaindog guy has all sorts of awesome ideas about bringing up lagging muscles AND training in such a way as to, if only for a time, get beyond the "oh, didn't lift more than last time. I failed! May the weight room gods punish me" mindset. I might agree that getting as big as possible ASAP also involves getting as strong as possible (for reps) ASAP, but there are other variables to manipulate.