It does put a certain limitation on their designs but that has not been a problem so far. I like my Para 2 but the hole in the blade does make it take up a lot more room in my pocket compared to slimmer knives like some of the Benchmade models. I can see where this would turn off certain people. I was never against the hole and bought a Spyderco knife many years ago for my EDC (Wayne Goddard), but once I discovered linerlocks and such I never went back to lockbacks and most Spyderco designs were lockback. So in my case the lockback models were the ones keeping me away from Spyderco. I didn't even know that they made anything other than lockback until I decided to take a look at their current designs due to the popularity of this forum. Now I have 2 Para 2's and I'm interested in buying some of their other models.
The Spyderco catalog has a lot of models that look very similar to me, such as Delica, Sage, Manix, etc., and they all are influenced by the big hole in the blade. It is possible to have a slimmer blade and still use the hole, similar to some of the Benchmade knives with the hole, so there is more ground for Spyderco to cover if they choose to.
Right now they are very successful and there is no reason for them to do anything more than keep producing Millies and Paras in different colors and with different steels, and try to meet the demand. Someday they may need to break away from their current design philosophy, or they may not. I can't predict the future.
