Anyone in the USA had any experience ordering directly from Lutel?

I know its not quite an answer to your specific question as i'm in Australia, but no problem at all ordering from Australia. Communication is excellent, very good at sticking to agreed waiting times and very flexible around shipping. This is of course assuming you are ordering from the correct Lutel, the Lutel Handicraft, not the 'other Lutel', the one that calls itself the 'official Lutel' site, which is to be avoided at all cost!! If you order from the guys at Lutel Handicraft you should have absolutely no issues at all.

I ordered something custom from them a few years back, and something stock a year before that. Their communication was good, the products were great (I have since sold them, not because they were bad though...), and they had the waiting list clearly posted on their website so I knew when they were working on my custom order. I don't know if they post the waiting list on the site anymore but I liked it. The products came securely boxed one week after they said they were shipping. The items I ordered were very well done and an excellent value in my opinion. All in all, I had 2 very good experiences with Lutel.

Lutel Handicraft is the website I was looking at. I truly appreciate your input, and will not let uncertainty on that question influence my decision making. I was admiring their seaxes and daggers, to the point I was motivated to ask.