I hear you bld522, i've also gotten the impression that you like CG blades from the comments you made on the dog father a while back. Just to play a bit of devils advocate on the "maximum performance to price ratio" maximum performance would depend on the use of the blade, and as uncoated knives perform better in certain situations than coated blades and vice versa, it is possible by that definition that an LE knife (or more specifically a non coated/satin finished blade) could in fact be the better performer depending on circumstance. For example i would prefer a fighting blade to not be coated...

But i hear what you are saying, i have personally never owned a coated blade and would like to try one out.