I agree with you that *IF* you use your knives hard, and for long durations that ergonomics become much more important. That said, I'd bet the vast majority of even knife enthusiasts here, are not using their pocket knife for any significant amount of time per day much less a significant amount of time doing consecutive hard cutting. I'd also be willing to bet that if people had to use many of the popular folding knives we see here for hours a day for constant cutting, they'd quickly start wearing gloves, or they'd be looking for a new knife with a better handle for long term hard use. Ergonomics are part of function of a knife as a whole, I just believe that for the vast majority of knife owners, they aren't using their knife enough to even know if their knife handle is ergonomic in the first place, so at that point a blade that holds an edge longer is more important for their use case.
Let's say I use my folding knife for actual cutting 30 minutes a day on average (I'd be that's even WAY too high for 90% of people with a knife in their pocket. Most probably don't average 5 minutes, a lot of guys I know with a pocket knife don't even use it every day for anything. Not only that but it's probably not consecutive cutting time through hard to cut things. Meaning the possibility for developing hot spots, blisters, etc. from a knife with poor ergonomics never has enough time to happen in the first place. Now of course there are limits, no one wants an uncomfortable handle, one with splinters, razor sharp machined edges that were not properly finished etc. but most folding knives don't have those issues.
I'd even go a step further that if you do really use your knives hard and for long durations, folding knives in themselves are a poor choice for handle ergonomics. A fixed blade handle is going to be much more comfortable because there's no gaps, buttons, and by their nature folding knives tend to have sharper handle angles. All bad things for ergonomics.
Let's say I use my folding knife for actual cutting 30 minutes a day on average (I'd be that's even WAY too high for 90% of people with a knife in their pocket. Most probably don't average 5 minutes, a lot of guys I know with a pocket knife don't even use it every day for anything. Not only that but it's probably not consecutive cutting time through hard to cut things. Meaning the possibility for developing hot spots, blisters, etc. from a knife with poor ergonomics never has enough time to happen in the first place. Now of course there are limits, no one wants an uncomfortable handle, one with splinters, razor sharp machined edges that were not properly finished etc. but most folding knives don't have those issues.
I'd even go a step further that if you do really use your knives hard and for long durations, folding knives in themselves are a poor choice for handle ergonomics. A fixed blade handle is going to be much more comfortable because there's no gaps, buttons, and by their nature folding knives tend to have sharper handle angles. All bad things for ergonomics.
