My Dear Friends,
Methinks the reasons for not offering "customizations" such as changing edge types/blade geometries, etc. are many and varied, as might be surmised from previous posts in this thread. Among them things such as damaging a privately-owned now-out-of-production blade.
Additionally, the overhead and associated logistical problems would be just unreal for a small company - either you take a trained staff already working to capacity and push them to exceed capacity (with the possibility of QC declining) or hire and train new staff at the additional expense.
Even if these issues could be overcome, you are still dealing with other factors such as:
Time: Everyone will want it done
right now, and the necessary longer wait times would start to create a Customer Service nightmare.
Cost: While some of us would undoubtedly be willing, many folks would be reluctant to pay what could easily be the street price for an additional knife to have mods done on an existing one.
One of the things I have always appreciated about Spyderco is affordability. Sure, they aren't as cheap as they were back in '04 or thereabouts when I started buying them, but they are still the absolute best quality for the money in the industry today IMO.
I guess I see some things differently these days - certainly I can think of special little mods that would make my knives (at least in my mind) "better" for my purposes, but I weigh that against the costs of obtaining such a knife. Spyderco has shown an amazing willingness to listen to the ELU, more so than any other large-scale production knife manufacturer that I am aware of. Our wants are frequently taken into account on Sprint Runs and new models, as well as Forum Models.
Even if we don't get everything that we want, I would think that most of us would readily admit that as Spyderco ELUs we really do have it good.
My very best to you all,
Hannibal Lecter