Your experience is not wrong, but the cause you attribute it to is. Damascus steels are made out of modern steels. Modern steels tend to contain molybdenum, van

Your experience is not wrong, but the cause you attribute it to is. Damascus steels are made out of modern steels. Modern steels tend to contain molybdenum, vanadium, chromium, tungsten, etc. when they are heat treated, some of those elements above form carbides in the steel. When you try to cut those carbides with a stone, you don’t. You need diamond stones to sharpen high carbide steel. Without that, the carbide scores the water stone and the stone erodes the steel around the carbide inclusions. Essentially making the edge lumpy. In old steels -1077, 1084, and 1095, there are few carbides that aren’t iron-based. This makes sharpening much much easier, and also makes edges dull much faster. In a straight razor, I (like you) would rather optimize for easy sharpening/honing, but, for other purposes, more modern steels perform better.