Interesting post, and question.
In spite of being a die hard slip joint user, I actually have tried the one blade knives that can be opened with one hand. I had some surgery on a hand, and for a few weeks I had onehand wrapped up in enough gauze to make a real mummy. I would never have even tried one of them if I had not had my hand operated on, so I grant you I was not a fan to start off with. I ended up just carrying a fixed blade until I got use ofmy hand back.
After living a full life as a slip joint user, I can tell you that they are more suited for whatever you call 'real work' than the one hand wonder. I enlisted in the army not long after high school, and for ten years I was an army engineer. MOS 51B20. I served on construction sites all over the world, to include extending runways at the old Wheelus Air Force Base in Libya, and serving in the 39th Combat construction battalion in Vietnam. We built barracks, bridges, roads, school houses, and fire bases. We did lumber framework, laid concrete, and ran wiring. General construction. My main edc knife in those years was a Camillus TL-29, a SAK, and later a Buck 301 stockman. Most of my fellow engineers carried variations of slip joints, ranging from Case stockman, more TL-29's, the MLK knife which is the all stainless steel issue scout type knife. Late in the 1960's, the PX started selling the Buck knife, and a lot of them made it to the web gear of a lot of GI's. But for the most part, we engineers just used what our supply room handed out like lollypops, the TL-29. For those who don't know, the TL-29 is a medium slip joint jack with one spear point blade and a screw driver blade/tool. The army issed the same knife for 40 years. My Uncle Charlie carried a TL-29 from a certain beach in France in 1944, to the other side of the Rhine in 1945. When I showed him my TL-29 that I came home with, it was identical to his except his had wood scales and mine had plastic. I guess that was progress.
Those TL-29's did a huge amount of work on job sites, and I never saw one break. Nor do I ever recall a time someone couldn't open a knife because they were holding on to something, and that includes hanging on a ladder. I'm 71 years old this this year, and have been carrying a knife for about 60 of those years. I've been a 51B20 (Carpenter) and after 10 years in the army I was given a medical discharge because of injuries received on active duty. After my rehab at Walter Reed, I was put in an apprentice program for machinist. I was still carrying the Buck 301 I bought at an army PX. Until 2001 when I retired, I still used that Buck 301 then a 303 cadet in the shop. There were times I used all three of the blades for something. I had definite need of a sharp knife in the shop, as there was round stock to be cut free of the dirt and steel dust impregnated tape that held the bundles together. There was double sided tape to be trimmed and cut while affixing parallels in a vise on the mill table, or gasket material to cut and burrs to be trimmed off delrin and plastic patrts that had been drilled or milled. Hands were greasy and dirty most of the time, but it was never a problem pulling out a slip joint to cut something.
But I'll tell you what was a problem. Using a knife with one single blade, like most of the high tech folders, you very often were faced with cutting through some material that was going to take the edge right off your knife. Dirty, oily fiber gasket material, rubber sheet, dirty nylon fiber reenforced strapping tape holding round stock for the lathes, or peeling off tape from vise jaws and parallels. I tried to carry a single blade knife, and it was a huge failure. This, a 'real work' environment, is where the multi blade knife shines. With a three blade stockman, you could keep the main blade sharp, use the sheep foot blade for somethings, and the spey was your scraping and peeling blade for stripping wires when connecting something up. You had a versitility that no knife with a single blade can ever give you. Even a two blade knife, like a barlow or jack, gave you two different blades with two different type of edges on them. Also, having too long a blade was a problem for close work. Most one hand locking folders have too long a blade for close control in precise work.
If I am faced with 'real work' as you put it, I'm reaching for a knife with multiple blades on it. If I can have one of those blades be a tool, like on a TL-29 or scout knife, I'd be very happy. There's probably been more 'real work' done with a SAK than any one hand wonder knife designed to appeal to the Walter Mitty in us. Cool is good, if that's what you want. If you want a one hand opening knife just because that's what appeals to you, that's fine. That's the nice thing about being a grown up; we can drive whatever car we like, carry whatever knife we like. But making statements implying that for 'real work' you need a one hand opening knife, is just plain silly. Too many ranchers, farmers, soldiers, and workers in general have done too much 'real work' with stockmen, barrows, TL-29's, and SAK's for that statement to carry water. Carry what you like because you like it. But trying to justify it because it solves some non existent problem isn't the way to go. I've always thought that if I need a knife that I can get out easy, and with one hand, then I'll just use the original one hand knife; a fixed blade.
Carl.
That said there are times when I woudl rather use the regular screw driver, such as mkaing sure I'm not cross threading into plastic or stripping a fine screw in a computer.