I've been following this thread with interest, and here's two thoughts I had:
(1) Somebody suggested that the changes in the lock were made to cut costs. Well, given that the new design requires more/ more complex machining on both the viroblock and the inner collar (i.e., two of the five parts that the knife consists of), I think this is rather unlikely - might even be that the opposite is the case.
(2) I'm only about 1/3 engineer by training, but given my understanding of mechanics the new divot should actually make things stronger under force, if anything. My thinking is: if force is applied to the spine of the blade, the viroblock is forced downwards at the front (blade-side) of the knife, creating a pull on the backside (spine-side) of the collar (where the new divot is). This causes the divot to wedge into the rail cut into the inner collar, thus creating a second anchor point for the lock, and helping to prevent lock slip. This of course only works if the knife locks properly in the first place, meaning that the viroblock collar turns at least +/- 45° from open to closed.
And to answer SwiftDreams question: I have two Opi #8s (oak & walnut), both have the new lock, and both work great without having made any modifications. The lock-up on both knives (in terms of the degrees the collar turns as well as in terms of the look and feel of the lock-up in use) is the same as for my #7, which still has the old lock.