I don't get the steel fetishism either, and with kitchen knives it's clearly very much about environment: your fancy-pants pocket knife steel may not do well in

I don't get the steel fetishism either, and with kitchen knives it's clearly very much about environment: your fancy-pants pocket knife steel may not do well in an environment where it's sat around damp and with food residue on it for hours or days, shoved into a dishwasher, or whatever. I'm not mad on pocketknives, but I've got a small handful in 440C, a couple in AUS-8, and then one in S35VN. The latter used to be considered fairly high end as a blade steel but now appears to be increasingly commonplace in even relatively inexpensive knives. From a practical standpoint, and for my use cases, there's no significant difference between any of these, except that the S35VN is harder to sharpen. I have no complaints with edge retention or sharpness for any of the 440C or AUS-8 knives I own even though they're looked down on as blade steels by the knife community and, in fact, my favourite pocketknife for everyday and DIY use is the very inexpensive Ontario Rat #1 in AUS-8. It fits my hand well, is a great cutting tool, and is incredibly easy to sharpen and maintain.