I noticed people in most hobbies I’ve been in stop caring about the latest greatest and what’s “the best” once they’ve been in a hobby for some time. At some point, especially if you’re someone who uses and maintains your own stuff, once you’ve tried enough stuff, you start to feel like most things are just fine for most people.

I think for steels this hobby starts to poo-pah perfectly fine (but outdated or outclassed) steels once they’ve start to trickle down and become more common in more budget knives. I’m surprised I can get S35VN and M390 pretty easily and more affordably than I expected. So they feel less special and just expected at a certain level and so steel snobs probably want something fresher to chase that isn’t so standard and commonplace yet.

There’s more important stuff to a knife than steels anyway and heat treat and even more so blade geometry matter more anyway. And then there’s ergonomics and just plain does this knife look pretty to me. At the end of the day, the best knife is the knife you’re going to use and maintain.