E Phillip Smith
Glad to see your post on the CPM M4.

I would argue that both test are important. Many of the people on the hand tool forum would argue that a finish ready surface is critical but much of the work working world are good with making a reasonably clean cut and touching with sand paper if needed.

A couple of examples.

The last couple of weeks I've be doing finish carpentry on a patio. All of the boards (kiln dried pressure treated yellow pine) have significant planer marks on the surface. Surface of the boards were sanded with belt sander, simply too much work with hand plane, but all of the show edges were hand planed with the 4.5 LN with M4 iron and the touched up with sandpaper to make sure finish paint had good adhesion.

Earlier this week I made three pieces of custom molding about 1 1/2" wide to go on the facia. It's been rainy and I wanted to paint before install. Sanding and painting outside was not an option. Inside I could sand with random orbital sander and fill shop with dust, not a real option. Sand with drum sander and fill dust collector with nasty dust, not a good option. OR handplane which I did with the M4 iron. Surface is more than acceptable for paint.

At this point this iron has planed half mile of shavings of North American hardwood and soft wood. I have pulled the iron for sharpening. I hit a staple the other night and it left a very small nick in the blade.