I really like to carry a Wave and I find the pliers quite useful - best way to unjam a locking carabiner,which is probably a fairly specialized SAR application. The pliers also work well for extracting cactus spines.If weight is critical, I could certainly do OK with a SAK, which I carried for years before I got my first Leatherman. I could also do fine, and save weight, if I packed my Squirt PS4, which could handle most tasks. It really comes down to the nature of the rest of your equipment and whether it contains anything that might need the capabilities of some sort of multi tool. This obviously varies a lot, depending upon circumstances.