Reciprocating saws (Sawzall) - shorter stroke, orbital action ???

I'd say one major con is that you are only using 3/4" of the blade. Say you're cutting something a half inch thick (like sheetrock) it's gonna wear a blade to uselessness almost twice as fast. You'll have a bunch of good teeth that aren't being used.. the oribital action is just gonna make your hand numb quicker.

Just a thought.

I have the folding Milwaukee Hatchet with both features and really like it. The orbital action helps it cut in wood, but the action seems less pronounced than a jig saw with orbital cutting.

The shorter stroke makes it much easier to control when cutting where the blade can ram into something that is behind the stuff you are cutting, and makes blind starts easier. Both are situations I encounter frequently in remodeling.

For instance, we just removed an old porch floor, and had to pull the flooring boards straight out of the wall since they had siding nailed down over the top of them and couldn't be pried up. This left dozens of nails in the space where the boards ended, and where the new boards had to fit. If you try to cut the nails off with long stroke recip, you either jam the blade into the back of the recess, or the blade strokes forward too much and drops off the nail.

If you primarily just cut stuff off in roomy spaces, the longer stroke will cut faster.