Just some thoughts.

1. I never buy a knife that has serrations on the back edge of the blade. Can't even understand why they would be there. It just weakens the blade. Those kinds of blades remind me of the "Rambo" mentality - doesn't make a lot of sense.

2. Serrations are helpful if you are in a situation where you cannot sharpen your knife. The knife will retain cutting power with them - against softer materials like tissue and meat. A partially serrated blade (with the serrations on the sharp side, toward the handle) gives you options for this kind of outcome.

3. I agree that straight edges are easier to sharpen and generally work very well for most purposes. The only time I used to avoid them was on knives for skindiving - these knives were usualy made from crummy stainless steel alloys. The edge holding was so bad that serrations worked better for me. Eventually I gave up and just took a sharp knife made from 1095 steel into the ocean, and cleaned up the corrosion each time after I was done for the day.

Pete2