I think most people could give a rat's rear end about the brand of knife they buy. Most people buy a knife for a purpose at hand or because it looks cool or because they've heard of the company before. Most never pay any attention to anything but price and how sharp it is coming out of the box. Most people don't research what knife to buy, they just buy what they see at Walmart or Bass Pro in a glitzy display case. Most people know Gerber from its reputation 30 years ago and are not familiar with their current production.
Those people are Gerber's customer base.
I don't know much about the two models mentioned. I think I recall reading the Prodigy is a full tang design while LMF is not--but I could be wrong about that. Both are 420HC, I think. Decent steel but nothing special (unless it's done by Buck). Both knives look robust and will probably work fine for the purposes mentioned. I have no recommendation of one model over the other.
