Appropriate carry is completely dependent upon the scenarios that you consider likely / important enough that you want to be prepared for them more than you want whatever comfort you might lose in carrying that preparation. These things are all relative.

Aron Ralston

1) Do some scenario thinking, brainstorm it, check with the FEMA web site for what they consider likely or worthy of preparation, read more here but come up with a list of scenarios that might happen. Go wild here and include everything from being hasseled by the scecurity guard at work for carrying a wire saw to an asteroid hitting the potomac with ensuing flooding and fire.

Aron Ralston

2) Go through the scenarios and determine which you think will be above a level of likelyhood that it is more likely than other risks which you take without concern already. I like the benchmark of traffic fatalities in my area as something I risk without any real thought or preparation (other than wearing my seatbelt - which I honeslty don't always do) That is a realistic predictor of what types of risk probability to which I am willing to expose myself.

Aron Ralston

3) Go through the complete list and rate them again for the level of damage they will cause if they occur to you while you are un-prepared vs what level of damage you could avoid through reasonable preparation. (This will rule out preparing for things like asteroid collisions because no-matter what preparation you take you will suffer annihilation anyway.)

Aron Ralston

4) Go over the rated list and determine what EDC items you could have that might mitigate the risk or likelyhood of any of these scenarios and you will have a long list of gear that you might want to carry. Now get inventive on what gear could do double and triple duty and how to carry as many functions with as little gear as possible.

Aron Ralston

To simplify this you might just take advantage of the wisdom of the forum and carry the stuff most of us do - though there is wide variance there as well. I might suggest that you carry some bandaids, some duct-tape, some cord, some wire, a Large trash bag, and a knife as a minimum. I think that this could be assembled in a package roughly the same size as you wallet (which should have a phone card (or atleast the number from the phone card, an AMEX and a MC card, a Condom (multi-purpose tool), some business cards( for note-taking and passing out), a fresnel lens, and about $100 in bills no larger than a twenty and perhaps $2.00 in change. This minimum EDC could be carried as a wallet on right and left side ( BTW this is better for your spine since you will be sitting balanced) and knife and cellphone on your belt on right and left side. The nice leather holster for my leatherman wave has never drawn a bad reaction from anyone. Many times it isn't even noticed until I have a use for it and produce it from under my jacket and impress someone with the fact that I have the tool needed for the job. OTOH, I don't have to pass through metal detectors on a regular basis.

Aron Ralston

In urban DC with a 5 min walk to work on a weekday where you will go to work, stop by the convenience store and video store on the way home and then plunk yourself down on the couch till sunrise with the beer and video you might think that you don't need much - and you might be right. OTOH, I might think that I need a Glock to simply leave my apartment in that same environment and wouldn't walk into the convenience store or video store without un-latching the holster. You feel comfortable without making much by the way of self-defense preparation in that environment - I don't. Neither one of us is right or wrong. You will certainly have less hassle visiting museums or getting into work and fewer of your friends and passerbys will notice you and you will encounter those situations everyday so being prepared for them is important from the perspective of probability. I will be much better off if I leave work late one evening and there is an unsavory character waiting at the entrance of my apartment building - that is certainly less likely than that I would be required to deal with stowing my sidearm on the way into the building every morning but the extra effort would be worth it to me on that one evening.

Aron Ralston

So, in a long winded manner, my answer on whether your EDC is too much or too little is, it depends.