Mike - I am in the same position. I was going to get the LMF II but after seeing my brothers and after having the Rat-7 for a couple years now realzie I don't use the "BIG BLADE" nearly as much as I would have thought.

I carry on my waste a benchmade nimravus in m2 steel and the blade is thin enough and shaped to be used as stabbing weapon, it's light enough and comfortable enough to be used to whittle in camp or carve things out of and its big enough to do minor bush work, or if you are lucky it can be used to skin a fish or gut animals with ease. For anything else I use my small axe or machete. The Nimravus in m2 can be sharpened to a razors edge and it seems to hold good so far too.

I think if you had to have one heavy duty cutting tool that served a lot of purposes then the LMF II fits that purpose very well. Although I`m not too sure how good it would serve as a protection blade for stabbing or slicing for that matter... blade is FAT, and thick.

For a backpacker, hiker or average outdoorsmen I think a skinnier and thinner fixed blade knife that can serve multiple purposes and a small blade for detail work (SAK) and an axe serve one much better