Yeps Jay is correct, he used the USK serrated in the NZ episodes..
IIRC the composition of the USKs are 7cr17mov and the LMFII I believe is 9cr19mov. Could be wrong. The steel isn't really that much of an issue. Where I think it goes wrong is in the heat treat. The USKs are Chinese made and I would assume Chinese treated. How good their heat treat is is probably quite debatable due to their lesser QC standards. The LMFII is still made in Oregon so I'm guessing that the HT for them would probably be better. Again, could be wrong.
I used to own both types of the first gen. USKs and an LMFII but unfortunately I never got to punish the crap out of them before I got rid of them and started buying Beckers and Kabars.
I will be frankly honest with you, the handles on the USKs (to me) were incredibly comfortable. I loved them. Don't know if there were any hot spots when using them because again, I really only used the serrated version lightly. I knew nothing of knives and steels back then and to me I thought "this knife is really cool!" and actually looked forward to really using the hell out of it but then I got 'spoiled' when I bought a BK2 and started to research steels.
Anyway OP, if you have one, use it. If you want one, get it. It's your choice and if you like it who cares what others say. If it fails, goes dull or you don't like it, just chalk it up to experience. It's not like you'll be that much out of pocket.
Just my 2 drachmas anyway..
Springy..