No choice but to "acknowledge" him. We're standing nose to nose, he planted himself in front of me, starts screaming, my daughters are in my truck about ten feet away.... I backed him off without shooting him, and to me, that is the reason for carrying: so you do not have to fire your weapon. It's not the same reason exactly that a cop carries a gun, to apprehend and subdue. I carry a gun to avoid having to shoot, and to be able to if I have to. In the situation I described, I did not even have to show my weapon. I chose to do what I deemed necessary to stop the scenario from escalating. At that point, my goal was to stop the whole deal, which I did quite successfully, and that is the real acid test: did it work? Yup. If it's stupid but it works, it ain't stupid.
While you may not believe in brandishing, it is a legitimate tool to defuse a poentially deadly situation. Cops do it every day of the world, as do private citizens. Again, the end result is the most important part. That does not always hold true for cops, who have to make every move under the microscope, and avoid rights violations and such.