The welds I've seen on all titanium bikes, is often very minimal bead size; That may be a factor in durability. This past year I saw at the LBS, a Masi touring bike, steel frame, and I'll tell ya, the weld beads were incredibly neat and lovely, but *tiny*, looked almost like they were laser-welded together, if not for the actual weld bead additive materal, but it was small. I wondered about long-term durability. The lovely quality welds on my Dahon steel frame are no more than 1/3 of the width of weld beads on their aluminum bikes, but even that narrow bead is at least 2X the bead width on that Masi. Very elegant, but I wonder about durability.