tsioics, I like your explanation. I'm assuming you are an engineer, and being one myself, I really liked the way you explained it.
I'm an architect, not a PE. Just trying to inject a little quantification.
"... not toooo sturdy..." is pretty vague, even by my artsy-fartsy standards.
Materials respond differently to different loading modalities. It just so happens that steel works very well in shear. If you're going to start talking about relative strength or reliability in a connection, you need to have some context and data. Even fuzzy data is a lot better than a bunch of adjectives.
Another thing (maybe getting up on the architectural soapbox a bit here) is that design involves proportion. It is not particularly elegant to design a structure around loads that are never going to be applied to it. More is not necessarily better.
People sometimes lose the forest for the trees, in the sense that they are comparing wild hypotheticals and ignoring actual day-to-day utility. The purpose of a folding knife is to fold and to cut. Obviously one wants the knife to be robust enough to deploy and cut reliably. There comes a point though, where adding structure to the knife begins to impair its ability to cut. This is where you have to ask, is this added structure really serving my purpose, or is it starting to work against me? In order to answer that kind of question, you have to have some sort of data to apply to the problem... because simply having more is not always better. As well-equipped as he might be for the victory celebration, a marathoner with a case of beer on his back is not a better marathoner.
Same thing's true of utility. Smoother pivot, faster action... etc. These are not necessarily features of true utility. Are you familiar with the term "bench racing"?
An automatic would be one example of gee-whiz action in a folder, but it has little practical value. In some ways, it's just another thing to break.
So my opinion (and this is nothing more than my personal opinion) is that Chris hit it out of the zip code with the Sebenza. Why? The design does what it needs to do in a very simple and straightforward way. Structurally and mechanically, it does a little more than it needs to do, but that is all. The real reason that the Sebenza is the best folder on the planet (apart from the spartan elegance of the design) is not because of bells, whistles and over-construction. It's because the Sebenza focuses on build quality. It adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
I am not so conservative as to be unable to accept that Chris might release a design that betters the Sebenza. I am though, naturally skeptical regarding added structure and function... because I don't think any more structure or function is needed. So, if they are provided, they have to come, as it were, for free. They must not come at the expense of basic utility or reliability.
If I want to carry an 8" knife that cuts as well as the Sebenza, is stronger and deploys faster, I have about 30 fixed blades that will do just fine.
CRK hit's it out of the park with every folder! I don't think there's any flaw in the design, and neither does CRK. Just some people constantly play with the knife and wear out something that really will last a lifetime with normal use like you say. A CRK is for life though man and I agree, very robust. My favorite folder.....that umnum is creeping up though 
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