It feels like they are making small moves in regards to market changes, rather than trying huge moves at higher risk. Overall, they have more total options than some knife companies, certainly I think they have top billing for total options in mulitools as a category, though I may be wrong there. I think they are trying things out that right now make sense. I can see why someone would like the spring loaded pliers, but to me they take up more space than they earn in usefulness. But that's for me. One of the things a company does in this "category" ie, something you might buy a cheap version of, then a more expensive version if it proves useful. they have something all over the price ranges, they have stuff for a pretty wide variety of clients. You can't please all the people all of the time, but they seem to have positioned themselves for the average user as they get a "cheap" one as a gift, think, well that's really useful, and then drop real cash on the better one they want. Which is perfect for most people. Most people will only ever own one or two, and if they can sell just over one tool to a wide range of the population, they are better off than if they sold six to each of the members of BF. I notice that they stopped chasing the steel snobs, which again, makes sense to me. By the time a company that size gets tooled up to produce blades at their level for a flavor of the month steel, they weren't going to buy one anyway.
On topic, if the Curl had been available, and one-handed blades acceptable where I was, I would have bought a Curl instead of a Rebar to replace my Pulse. That tool was made for lighting and sound techs.
