My memory might be fuzzy, but I seem to remember that not so long ago Condor stuff was a real bargain. Now the prices strike me as being a little steep for something that has a pretty 'workmanlike' finish at best. 
I do keep reading about happy users though so it can't be all that bad. 
mind if I ask what the sheath is like on yours Heinz?
To put it simply, it's outstanding. I'd say that most places would charge as much for the sheath as for the knife. I think this is a big part of where the value of the Condors comes in to play.
As a guesstimate, I'd say the leather is about 1/4" thick all around, and the belt loop is double stitched at the top and bottom. The ends of the stitching on the top and bottom of the sheath are also riveted for extra strength.
It fits the knife very snugly, with very little play. I can rotationally wiggle the blade a little with enough force, but so far I've been unable to shake the knife out of the sheath with anything like normal forces you might encounter while wearing it on your belt. If I squeeze the sheath hard and really, really give it a good whip, the knife will dislodge, but I don't think most people would encounter that kind of thing while wearing it on their belt.
I really like the blade shape of the Tavian; it seems very well suited to be a good knife for smaller and more precise utility tasks. It's easy to choke up on the blade and place a finger along the spine for precise work, and the little valley in the top of the spine makes a good finger rest you can use for precise work. I think it'd be a good skinner for that reason as well.
The only changes I've made to the knife so far are a slight reshaping of the blade to make the tip more rounded to give it a smoother belly, and rounding off the top of the hardwood scales. Before I did that, they would hang up on the opening of the sheath, and I'd have to use a second hand to squeeze the sheath a bit to make the opening wide enough to put the knife in. Now that I've round them off, it goes in smoothly each time, and I can easily do it one handed.
The only thing I would change about the knife is that I'd love to have some jimping along the top of the blade, and I'd like the little valley behind the tip to be just a bit deeper, with some jimping too. I'm actually going to take my Dremel to it this afternoon and see if I can do that myself. For only $25 I don't mind if I mess it up a little, as my next Condor purchase is going to be one of the 5" Bushcraft Basic models. Once I get the pimping done, I'll set some time aside to go into the woods and practice some firemaking and shelter building, and I'll give a report back then. It probably won't be until late next week though, as on Thursday I'm off to Minnesota with my daughter to visit my grandmother.
Edit: I did some slight mods to the blade. The jimping on the spine near the handle didn't go nearly as well as I liked, so I emulated the little valley further down the blade towards the tip. Now it's got two places to put a finger or thumb to improve fine control. I also removed the black coating with a wire wheel and some fabri-cut, then some light polishing with my dremel and some 600b sandpaper.
In spite of my having to reevaluate my original plan for the customization, I'm pretty happy with it overall.
I also tried the new finger/thumb divot on a ferro-rod, and it works quite well. The steep end of the curve grabs onto a ferro-rod very well, and makes a good amount of sparks.
My next and final step will be to force a patina on the blade to protect it from rust. I've heard that mustard works well for that... I've got a little bit of country dijon sitting in the fridge that I thought I'd try... anyone have any suggestions for how to get good results with that?
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