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Well I'm here to tell you that conservatively probably about 95% to 98% of all full custom titanium liner locks ever made have not had a steel insert, and it has worked out pretty well. In fact as far as $500+ knives I've owned, only one of them has had one. None of them have had any kind of lockup issues. I've owned an Allen Elishewitz liner lock for years, and definitely have thousands of needless opens and closes on it from just fondling it, the lock is exactly where it was when I bought it new. I've also owned an Andre Thorburn flipper, Thorburn is well known specifically for making flippers with amazing action, for those worried about a flipper with no lock insert, none of his have one. Even as far as production knives, Benchmade had great lock geometry with titanium liner locks nailed in the early 90s with the AFCK and many other models. In fact it's kind of a shame that nearly all their models are AXIS now because they knew how to make a great titanium liner lock. I can only assume that most of the concerns here come from either bad experiences with poorly made liner locks of framelocks with either bad geometry or non-carbidized faces or both, or just no experience of a really good one. Most production liner locks are not a good representation of how good they can be even when the interface is steel on steel for that matter, a lot of them suffer from bad geometry. However, I've experienced all sorts of lock types in folding knives, AXIS, button lock, ball bearing lock, compression lock, frame lock and liner lock with and without insert. A properly done titanium liner lock is as good as any of them for any kind of use a folding knife should encounter. Having previous experience with Reate models, and assuming the lock design on this model is exactly how Ochs intended it to be, I have no doubts that it will be equivalent to my experience with custom liner locks, which has been completely issue free in years of ownership. Hope some people find this helpful.