Sean :
On the other hand, just because it's made to stand up to heavy uses doesn't change its primary function; if it has an edge, it's made to cut.
That is one of the things obviously but its not the only thing and often it is not the primary design goal. For example once you go over 1/8" you steadily lose cutting ability in both chopping and slicing. The only advantage to the thicker blades is in terms of durability and this is only an advantage if you are prying, hammering or doing other heavy work. So obviously if your blades are thick, cutting is not your primary concern.
This is a bit outside the point though which has come up in this thread. The "use it for what it was intended for" arguement. The simple fact is that throwing, digging, prying, chopping and hammering are intended uses for some knives. It is not abusive, insane or anything else to use them in this manner as it it what they were made to do. Different knives are made for different things. There are some knives that were made just for slicing and are optomized to do so, and there are some knives that were not.
As for intended use in general, it always has to be kept in mind the level of stress you are placing on the knife. Even though it might not be an intended use - knives should not fail under stresses they were designed to be able to indure even if the situtation by which they incounter them is a bit odd. For example, I recently spent some time digging, hacking and twisting the blade of my Calypso Jr. in soft pine. The knife was not designed for this, yet if the blade had failed I would not chalk it up to abuse. The knife should have handled what I was doing with it (it did), because it was designed to handle that level of stress, even though not that particular activity.
On a related note, digging often comes up in this mannerer. I don't think I have ever seen someone comment "this knife was designed to dig", as knives in general have very poor geometries for that kind of thing. Yet I don't consider digging to be outside of knife use simply because the level of stress it places on a blade is far below the level of stress it will encounter in what it was designed for.
When somone says "don't XXX with this knife", don't just think "would I ever need to XXX?". Instead think about the kind of strain XXX places on a blade and how this relates to the kinds of things that you will be doing. Most often when you are warned not to do something, its not because its particularly hard on a knife, its simply because its fairly easy to do and thus you can quickly spot flaws by doing it.
-Cliff
