I think there's a fair amount of evidence demonstrating that the Tri-Ad lock is one of the strongest on the market. As for being able to support 500+ pounds, I was told by a Spyderco rep that in their testing of the new model BBL on the Manix 2, the knife supported over 1000 points at the pivot, at which point the handle disintegrated, while the lock remained fine. That's pretty darn good to me. I haven't heard much in the way of claims about the compression lock, and to be honest, I am unsure why it's supposed to be stronger than a liner lock. The physics is very similar, and they're going to fail in the same way. I don't think the AXIS lock is going to be quite as strong as the Tri-Ad or BBL locks from the tests I've read about, but it still is a VERY strong lock, and by far the fastest of the three.
But I don't really understand the point of these tests. I mean, seriously, under what circumstances would you ever be putting that kind of weight on a knife of any sort, let alone a folding knife? If you ARE going to find some absurdly weird fat alien circumstance in which to use said knife, why not just get a fixed blade and be done with it? I EDC a fixed blade and a folder personally.
Anything over the strength requirements of a well-built framelock is marketing overkill in my book if it doesn't accomplish some other task. AXIS and BBL locks both permit one-hand opening of the blade without much in the way of wrist english. I haven't been interested in any of the Cold Steel overengineered folding wonders for a variety of reasons (although I own and like several CS products), so I can't speak to what other advantages the Tri-Ad has beyond strength.
But think about this realistically, and ask yourself 1 question. Can I envision ANY sort of cutting or knife-related task that I could reasonably be expected to put my knife to in which I would put anywhere even close to the kinds of weights that we're dealing with here. Unless you are superhuman, and I don't care HOW strong you are otherwise, the human body is unlikely to be able to put those stresses on your lock. If it keeps the blade from closing on my fingers during any of my knife-related tasks, that's good enough for me.
Here's some examples to consider, that are in my opinion the most likely tasks you could perform with a knife that puts stress on a lock:
1. Sawing on something where the knife gets stuck periodically. Using your arm muscles, even putting your back and legs into it, you're still not going to put 500 pounds onto the knife. Your wrist or arm would give out before you can approach those stresses.
2. Chopping down a tree. First, why are you chopping down a tree with a folding knife? Second, I'm gonna challenge you to sink your knife into a tree with an arm powered swing deep enough to require 500 pounds of force to pull it out. Please take video of your attempts, and send it to Cold Steel so they can use it for marketing. Maybe the great LCT can do it?
3. For some reason, you need to climb up a cliff or something with your folding knife, and you're stupidly doing so in such a fashion that you are climbing against the knife, so that it has a chance of closing, as opposed to spine-up, which is what you'd see even in a movie. First, again, please make a video of your climb. That would be very cool to watch, if you were actually successful, and managed to sink the blade in deep enough to provide a handle to climb on. Second, I don't care how strong your knife lock is, you're replacing that knife after the climb, because you've likely ruined it in any number of different ways.
4. You belong to a knifetests or some other ridiculous site that requires you to abuse knives and attempt to break them in all kinds of disrespectful ways, such as smacking them with a sledgehammer. In that circumstance, I ask you to please stay well away from me and my knife collection, and if I were any maker who actually respected my own product, I would refuse to sell to you ever again. Knives are designed for cutting, not abusing. If you have some urge to destroy knives, what are you doing on Blade Forums?
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I've never thought despite this hype that "framelocks are the next thing to a fixed blade!" I've read statements like that go unchallenged on the forum but don't know if that's what you mean above. 
