I have never been afraid to baton with my knives. In fact, the first day my dogfather showed up, I took it out back to plow through some frozen wood <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> It is my normal splitting method for smaller sized wood.

With a smaller knife, batoning is just such a fast an convenient way to make notches too. Even your classic square notch can be made faster, and usually with better flats than trying to carve them.

I mess around with this stuff all the time. Not only making cooking cranes and such, but even simpler things like a stick with a notch to grab a hot pot off the fire.