You seem to be getting a little hot under the collar over this, and I'm not sure why. This is kind of a pleasant thread so far, and it'd be a bit of a shame if a pissing match spoiled that.
No pissing match here. This is a discussion forum, and that's exactly what I'm doing- discussing the topic at hand. Personally, I don't consider a difference of opinion to be a "pissing match", I consider it to be a
spirited discussion 
. And if you will remember, you directed your comments at me in your post, so naturally I'm inclined to respond.
I'm not saying that, because I'm of the opinion that carrying and using a scary looking knife in public tends to elicit bad reactions from people, common sense therefore dictates that you shouldn't carry said style of knife, although I do see where you might have got that from.
Perhaps I read you wrong, this is the internet after all, it happens. I always bristle when it appears that people here are judging others based on their personal choice of knives. Sorry for any confusion on my part.
One of my main points is, it's impossible to predict what type of knives other people will be scared of. Many people couldn't care less if you pull out a huge, black, "tactical" folder in public, and some people will freak-out at the sight of a swiss army knife. So I say, what's the point of trying to base ones choice of knife on how other people might react.
Of course, how other people choose their knives is of no concern to me. I personally don't choose my knives based on my ability to predict how others will react. Personal tastes, personal needs, my knowledge of local cops, and the law, those are the criteria I use in my decision making process. But that's me. Like I said, to each their own.
Like I said right there in my post, "this might not be an issue where you folks live, but here, if a police officer doesn't believe you have a legitimate purpose for carrying a knife, he might suspect that you're intending to use it as a weapon, and then you'll be in trouble with the law - thus a SAK or other traditional knife is a lot easier to explain than a big, serrated assisted opener or whatever". It's much easier to convince someone that something common and benign like an SAK is a tool instead of a weapon than say, A Spyderco Civilian, to use OP's example. A Civilian is a lot more likely to be considered a weapon by an officer of the law (hell, even the manufacturer explicitly states that it's not made with utility in mind - it was designed to be a weapon through and through). Carrying concealed weapons of any kind is illegal where I live (once again, might or might not be an issue for some of you folks).
Where I live, carrying and using a giant tactical knife in public when you don't have an explicit need for one can get you arrested if you're unlucky. What I'm saying is that, Objectively speaking, common sense dictates that you not do things that could get you arrested. Does 'not getting arrested' seem to you like a reasonable thing to attribute to common sense?
Naturally one should always consider their local laws when deciding what knives they carry, and I advise people do so all the time on this forum. And naturally peoples experiences will vary regarding interactions with cops. And if you know or believe that the cops in your area will react negatively to a particular type of knife then it makes perfect sense not to carry that type of knife. But not everyone lives under the same laws. And not all cops are the same. So for those of us who live with highly permissive knife laws and cops who couldn't care less about our legal knives, there's absolutely no reason why we need to consider such factors when choosing our knives.
Clearly you face greater knife restrictions where you live than I do. And it makes perfect sense to me that you would base your choice of knives, in part, on such factors. I do the same. I'm just lucky that the laws where I live are less restrictive and the cops don't bother people who are legally carrying knives of any kind. So I carry whatever I want.
