Do the push in bolts on my rifle mean it's a stupid design if it needs them to work better or even at all?
On Grenades I guess we could agree that they would be quite silly if they'd work with the pin inserted. :-o
The rao blade is super thick, thicker than any coldsteel blade I've seen . I doubt they'd break before the pivot or lock.
Why not use the lock for normal stuff and then if needed add a pin for crazy tasks? Why not have that option, nobody needs to use it if they don't want to.
As long as we don't see a Rao destruction with and without pin we can hypothesise a lot about the usefulness. If it's indeed useless it'd be pretty funny marketing. Also why don't they use it on their thinner blades? Maybe because they'd actually break before the lock?
Having to screw it in is bad in my opinion as well. There are surely more elegant and user friendly solutions.