Ok so I decided I'll put the comparison pics in here because really I don't know if I can say much more than Mark Greenman said in his thread about performance because my experience mirrors his pretty much to the letter, so I don't feel like I need to make a whole new thread about the benefits of the design.
Comparing to the original, they're obviously the same model but there are enough differences that you could almost call this a Massad Ayoob 2. What I don't have is the previous G10 sprint to compare, but I have a suspicion that since this new one is also screw construction that it has even more changes this time around.
To sum up, everything I noticed that differs; Screw construction, G10 and skeletonized liners, different size/design pivot pin, different thumb ramp profile, different thumb ramp jimping, different edge belly profile, different blade grind and height, different serration pattern/profile, different clip and clip hole pattern and 4 way clip, different lanyard hole, different gap between blade and liners/pivot (as in the machined "washers" on the inside around the pivot), different blade finish and overall fit and finish. Probably more I'm overlooking.
Thumb ramp jimping. The shape of the ramp and the teeth themselves are different.
Pivot pin difference. The new one is smaller and flush on the back screw head side. I can't say if the pin/head are only smaller on the outside since I can't take the pinned one apart to compare them.
Pivot "washer" gap difference. The new version is wider than the original. If you like close at the new one you can even see the "washers" inside the gap.
(those pics make it look like there's a blade stock thickness difference but one pic is just closer up to the camera than the other. In hand they're the same as far as I can tell)
Both have perfectly flush lock bars in both opened and closed positions.
Serration pattern difference. Also the new one seems to be flat saber ground vs hollow saber ground on the original, but the original has such a short and shallow hollow grind that it's practically an irrelevant difference.
Blade shape/belly/grind difference. This is hard to show in a picture because of the challenge of showing perspective in a picture, so in these pics where the red arrow is, that's where the camera is focused and the blades are centered and lined up from there. Perspective in a photo can make these differences look more or less than they really are but maybe this helps. You can pretty much see the difference just comparing the two in one picture, the new one has more belly and a less pointy and thicker blade tip.
Clip position. I started out carrying this knife the first day in tip down just like my original, and I had a strong expectation that the design just worked better tip down because the shape of the handle fits the inside of a pocket better this way, and that's still quite true. However, I must say the maker did a fantastic job of positioning the clip for tip up and it works just fine that way. Besides curiosity, I changed the clip over to tip up because of two very significant reasons...1) having the clip on the bottom of the handle helps to give my fingers some traction during opening, and 2) that jimping is so dang sharp that on several occasions it snagged my pocket while drawing the knife and almost yanked it out of my hand. This may be a really big deal to those who plan on carrying this for self defense so it's something I strongly encourage those people to look into. The original had much more mellow jimping and I never had this issue. The kind of pants pockets you're carrying in may also make a difference, this happened to me in uniform/Dickies style slacks with side slit pockets, it may be less of an issue for jeans style pockets. I also noticed this snagging when putting the knife back into my pocket when I changed it to tip up (because then the jimping is going into the pocket first) and I could see this maybe stopping you from fully clipping the knife securely into place, so again something to be aware of. I will say the new jimping is significant better in terms of thumb traction.
Lastly overall fit and finish differences. I must say, while the lockup and pivot action on the new one are second to none, I don't think the fit and finish are quite to the same level as the original. Maybe this is just a difference in how Cruwear gets finished, maybe it's cost cutting measures, you can decide. What I noticed was that the blade seems less finished than the original, the new one has noticable machining marks or laser path marks or whatever along the spine of the blade vs a smoothed and brushed finish on the original, and the thumb hole on the Cruwear is rougher and unfinished vs a cleaned up and machined surface on the original. This may even be a difference in how the blades are cut/stamped out in production, it may be that 21 years ago a blade was much more rough around the edges and required these extra steps to make them presentable, while today they're cut by laser and are good enough. It may be that this knife was cheaper to produce at a higher degree of fit and finish 21 years ago and these are just cost cutting details. Maybe this is just a sign of the difference between the generations that produced the two knives and maybe the new maker will eventually reach that extra refined level of fit and finish that the original has.
Overall I think it's an excellent knife and the maker did an excellent job. The details I think could be improved on are less important than things like lock up and pivot play, which this knife (or at least the ones I've handled) were as good or better than any other folder I've ever handled. All the examples I've handled did have a weird gritty feeling right out of the box but the two that I kept have smoothed out with a couple drops of lube and all of them drop shut with gravity while having no hint of wiggle in the pivot. The one I've been carrying does have a tiny bit of what you might call lock stick, but I think it's just due to how tightly and precisely the lock bar seats into the tang and it'll probably smooth out more over time as the surfaces wear together.
One last note on the snaggletooth serrations issue. I can't verify just yet but I suspect what we're seeing is related to the thickness change of the blade at the tip and the angle of the serration bevel. On the knife in these pics, the plain edge portion looks even width from end to end but the angle is much steeper at the tip than it is back at that last serration. I think they intentionally tried to make these knives look good and even, when this area of the knife is sort of a hot mess of angles and varying thicknesses. I think the knives with the "bad" looking serrations are probably the
better knives to have, because I bet those serrations are closer to the angle of the rest of the serrations, while the ones that look "good" are probably ground at a steeper angle to make them look consistent. I think this because an edge bevel gets taller as the angle is lower and shorter as the angle is steeper, and the snaggletooth serrations look like they're closer in height (and therefore angle degree) as the rest of the serrations. So...looks aside, the snaggletooth versions may well be the better performing knives IMO.
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