If you want a woods knife, the Reg may not be it. Not saying that it won't do those tasks, just that there may be another model that will better.
The SOD is fantastic as a camp knife.
That's the thing, though - due to its improved, beefy point, which excels at tip work, and its better handle, I have argued that the Regulator is
at least as good as a camp knife as the SoD... and with the full flat grind it is potentially a
better camp knife than the SoD CG. Switching it to a saber grind likely negates that benefit. With the full flat grind, the Regulator is a better brush slasher than the SoD CG, and with the 1/3 inch thick full flat, it's a better splitting wedge, even if it does chew up your baton due to the aggressive clip point.
Maybe that's what Dan wanted, to make it more of a dedicated fighter and less of a quality camp knife, but if so that's disappointing, as I think the Test Team Regulator is one of the best woods knife designs ever put out by the Yard, and it is a shame to mess with such perfect blade geometry. Maybe making it worse at batoning is supposed to discourage people from using it for that task, since beefing up the top guard is difficult.
To make a perfect knife - the Regulator only needed two changes - a rounded choil and a better guard. The choil wasn't a dealbreaker, but the guard was a huge issue and it's a shame it hasn't been addressed <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif" alt="" /> Changing the blade geometry is a real bummer.