TomD
"Just to make your wonderful discussion even more complex, try to remember that the new steels being offered by the custom knife makers are extraordinary in they're performance and one of these days a plane maker will offer a blade of V-10 or some such and make our lives even more miserable!! Grrinnns to all! Philip"

Several things about that.

The knife makers have no serious means of measuring their edge retention. They have a series of tests that are interesting, and interesting to beat, but largely meaningless. I don't own a knife in order to cut hemp rope, for instance.

Most knife makers sharpen off their belt sander, for which there are incredible belts and evens strops available. Sharpening with a 3 HP slave open up all kinds of options Mr Hand Tools does not have.

A lot of knife users can't sharpen knives. And I am talking about knife nuts, not merely people who never give the subject a thought. A lot of them send their knives back to the factory to be sharpened. I couldn't believe that when I first heard it.

A lot of knives have to be made in stainless to gain traction.

I'm enough into knife making that I own the tools and dabble. I don't trust a word knife makers say about steel, only because it is such a weird market. I mean, it is dominated by non-users.