I had a Battle Guard, people hated them, go read about it, lots of people disliked the design. Personally, I prefered it to my Battle Rat. The BG also had a full height flat grind instead of a saber grind.

Either way these knives will be good guys. Also, a non intergal guard will be the first thing to fail. So if the knives have nothing more than a rubber guard that is fine by me. There are alot of other great SYKC blades without guards and no one ever barked before...