Um, pure fusion nukes are far less polluting than kinetic bombardment.
Pure fusion doesn't spread radioactive material everywhere. There's just a radiation burst, shockwave and that's it.
Meanwhile your Rods of God would spread metric tons of vaporized heavy metal particles into the air which is a recognized health hazard. Maybe not as bad as old nukes but that's subjective here.
Having higher mass than the nuke also mean it'd be more expensive to ship up to space and it'd spew up orders of magnitudes greater amount of dust with all its negative effects.
Kunetic bombardment also has less AoE albeit much better penetration so they are better against underground shelters.

On the other hand the idea of releasing the rods from further away only makes them far easier to intercept because due to the weaker gravity it'd take exponentially more time to reach the target. Also since rods of god are unguided they require crazy precise positioning and even then they would be less accurate than guided weapons. Worse your location basically telegraphs them whwre are you intending to shoot these.
Kinetic bombardment are the poor man's nuke and you can be sure that they'd be handled by prepared militaries as if they were cheap chinese toys.
Kinetic bombardment would only work if you secured the space for it. Without space superiority they won't be any more than a distraction.