The thorns on mine are pretty small, and I haven't had any issues with them being bothersome, unlike wild blackberries that seems to rip me open if I even get close to them.
The thorns on my black locust also don't grab like blackberries do. I was even kind of testing this the other day, and I could run my hand over it gently without being poked. I was also thinking how they could make good chop and drop and maybe laid down around plants to keep critters away.
I made a video of mine the other day, not as good as Sean's, but might show a younger black locust and some additional ideas on using it. I'm still editing it, I'll try to remember to post it here once it's done.