Actually it really is a matter of what you prefer,but it can also be looked at as do you need a specific knife for each specific purpose.You can't carry a different knife for every different application,such as one to cut rope,one to chop with,one to widdle with,one to dig with,one to prepare food with,one to pick splinters out with,etc. etc.A thicker blade can do all of these things adequately but can a thinner blade? when i cut meat I use a thin butcher knife because it slices through meat more easily,but I wouldn't take these knives out for a weekend of hard survival training.However as you can see in my post of my tramp cutting meat it works just fine in this arena cutting meat like butter because although it is a thick knife it has good edge geometry. If you want a do-it-all then a thicker blade is fine as long as it's well designed.