I drove back late last night from Vermont to avoid some nasty weather. I'd been comfortably half-dozing and reading in my chair this afternoon when I saw and read through this thread. It was enough to make me get up and go across the room to grab my 710s. I'll try not to hold that against you, OP.
I've got two "regular" D2 710s and one 1401. Great knives all three and each with its own particulars. My first is my "rescue" knlfe, saved from an abusive owner who sold it filled with gunk, poorly sharpened, scratched, blade a little pitted one side, a little corroded the other, backspacer hacked out to avoid the blade hitting (common problem in older models), with a worn and chipped black-painted clip. A real beauty, no? Well the short story is I brought that one back a long way--cleaned up, sharpened, standoffs, new clip, etc, etc--and it's a favorite user. Not analogous to yours, as mine was a low-priced user and yours brand-new, but there's more to loving a knife than perfection out-of-the-box.
The other "regular" was bought on the Exchange as LNIB for a real good price because it was LNIB and a real good price. I like stock 710s, just wanted a clean one, and am glad to have it.
My 1401 was bought brand-new from KnifeWorks. I've bought maybe a half-dozen from there and have found KW to be beyond reproach. As to your knife, the blade has the same sort of lightly-showing grind lines as the stock D2s (though the flats are ground slightly diagonally), but with a lightly stone-washed finish instead of the "polished" satin of the standard model. Mine has some inconsistencies and lots of very light "scratches". That comes with that sort of finish and I never considered mine flawed. Mine was "too black" where yours is "too blue" and i figured mine was what it was. I actually prefer a clip just slightly off the scale, but it's an easy fix if you don't.
As to the action, I've rarely gotten a knife that I didn't want to adjust that on. Maybe it's too tight, too loose, too much play, whatever. All knives need to get broken in and I'll do a light adjustment and use the knife or just open/close it a gazillion times until it's worn a bit, then tweak it until I'm happy. Benchmades are like old Jaguar automobiles--great design, great build, and need tuning and tweaking to keep running right. Several of my AXIS locks have required break-in for their tiny amount of vertical play to disappear. Rotate the AXIS bar every few openings and put a little pencil "lead" on the blade tang locking ramp. If you grab and flex any folding knife hard enough you can force some play in either direction.
My guess, OP, is that you spent what seems a lot of money on a knife and you expected it to be perfect and exactly how you envisioned it. I would suggest that if you're looking for a collectible that you at least double your price point, though there's not a damn thing wrong with Benchmades at 180 bucks--they're just meant to be used. Safe queens will never break in--in fact the action often degrades over time as lubes dry up and oxidation takes its toll.
Well, crap, y'all woke me up enough to write all that. My advice, OP, is to use that damn fine knife you bought and you'll like it more ever time you take it out of your pocket and cut some stuff. Now, back to my snooze....
