My thought exactly. You can't conceal carry (in the pocket or even in the bag) a fixed blade in California. Open carry is out of fashion here either (except when in the woods). But I'm using LM Wave for almost everything now anyway. To address the lesser steel quality of the multitool blade there are several other cutting blades available, just chose wisely what to use for what.

For the pliers - think of them as an Iron Man hand/fingers You will see then a lot of decent applications for them in the field as well as in the urban environment, especially if you add a small bungee cord to keep them closed and hangable.

Also I disagree with opinions about the lack of swiftness in arming the MT knife. At least on the Wave, all you need to do is to loosen the pivot screw a little, so you can open the blade with one hand's thumb easily, and practice doing that for a while.