OK - I have both sitting in front of me right now. The Superleaf is an impressive knife, but the Para is equally impressive in a few areas that the Superleaf is not (the opposite is also true).
The handle on the Para 2 is longer - as is the blade (cutting edge comparison - pivot to tip comparison puts them almost equal).
The liners and blade on the Superleaf are thicker than the Para, but they don't feel that much different weight-wise. If I were to take a blind test as to which was heavier, I couldn't tell you which was which.
Retention on the Para 2 is almost break-your-finger strong when trying to flick with either the right-hand middle finger or the thumb. The Superleaf's retention almost has me question whether something is wrong with it. With the pivot loosened up to where it can be flicked open, you can actually (with centrifugal force only - no fingers touching any part of the blade or the compression-lock tab) flick it open - that makes it technically illegal to carry where I live. I can feel the ball detent snap into place, but its not like that of the Para 2 at all. I suspect that there might just be some dirt or junk in the detent-hole.
Also, the Superleaf's thumb ramp is too far back away from the tip of the knife in relation to where the finger choil sits - this isn't even really enough to bother me, but had they moved it forward just a mm or two, it would be almost perfect. The leaf-shaped blade does make for a lower cutting edge - which I like a lot.
When folded closed, the Superleaf does have a slightly fatter profile than the Para, but its not as much as people have talked about on the interwebz - sitting one on top of the other reveals that at the foot of the handle and the thumb-ramp portion of the handle, the Superleaf sticks out farther - also the blade shape makes it stick out a little bit farther as well, but its not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.
The Superleaf does have the wire clip which allows it to sit deeper in the pocket. Its got what appear to be Teflon washers in it (its bushingless and almost as smooth as the Para 2). The Superleaf also has one more screw/pillar holding it together than the Para 2 has (one at the wire clip making 4 counting the pivot as opposed to 3 on the Para 2).
The VG-10 on this blade is polished well better than any Spyderco I've received to date (including 3 Taiwan models and two US models - one being the Sprint CTS-XHP Manix). I'm excited about owning a Japanese model with this kind of beefiness to it. It almost makes me want to go back and pick up another Gayle Bradley (I regret selling my first one).
No fit/finish flaws on either and lockup is perfect on both.
As an interesting note - there is no Sal stamp on the Super-leaf - which I find odd. This one wasn't inspired by another designer was it?
