Well, in the end I decided to mod both my S5 and SOD by removing thumb ramp and guard. The mods really improved comfort for me on both knives. However, the SOD mods, are just wow. This feels like a totally new knife to me now. I can get both my index finger in the choil and my second finger resting on the now flat ricasso. This lets me really choke up on the blade and get my thumb far up the spine. I feel I get really great tip control like this and the SOD now feels like a much better all-rounder camp knife whereas before I treated primarily as a devoted chopper.

I know that performing knife mods is a bit contraversal, but now I like these two even better than before and that simply means they are going to get more belt time and use. Thanks to KG and HornDog for posting their pictures and inspiring me to go at it!

P.s. both knives took about 20 minutes to do. I just used a bench grinder and took my time. Quick little stroke on the stone, dip in water, repeat. The blade never got too hot touch. The hardest part is just keeping the self discipline to keep dunking it in water and not remove too much metal at any time.