I feel the desire both to agree and argue on this topic. I like 440C very much, and firmly believe that it has been eclipsed in popularity by other stainless steels greatly because of publicity and the extremely fad-heavy nature of the knife industry and only somewhat by genuine performance differences in newer alloys. When ATS-34 hit the industry in bulk, several years ago, people seemed sure that this was the blade steel that God himself had sent us. It was just wonderously splendiferously awesome and all of us wondered how we ever got by with the "knives" we'd had before...many of which were sold quietly so we could be free from possible embarrassment of being seen with one.
Then came BG42, and we all realized the horrible weaknesses of ATS-34 and were glad to have been saved from it.
Later, S30V...
The really amusing part is that all of these alloys do roughly the same job. At the typical, hi-50s HRC that most modern knives are made to, and with the same quality of heat treat and geometry, most people are not going to be able to tell one bit of difference in using these steels. All have strengths and weaknesses, but you're VERY much discussing similar animals with these alloys---all are very good blade steels for the same range of applications. The steel manufacturers, of course, can provide you with a whole host of reasons why their product is vastly superior to the competition. Funnily enough, the same is true of people who turn out light bulbs and hamburgers. It's like they want you to buy it or something...
Properly heat treated, with proper blade/edge geometry, 440C is a very solid performer.
However, now I come to the part where I disagree with the OP's sentiments. The reason you don't see many large, heavy duty fixed blades in 440C anymore is the same reason you don't see many of the same in ATS-34 anymore and why you're starting to see fewer in S30V------these steels' properties are not optimized for the type of use that large, heavy fixed blades are intended for. Again, we return to the fad-nature of the knife industry. A new steel comes out, nobody has much experience with it, but everybody has it on good authority that it's the most incredible material that man hath ever wrought, and everybody has to have knives made out of it. Now, are big knives made out of these materials absolutely crap? No. But, they're not what they could have been if made out of a more suitable material.
What you see as the "lack of love" for big, stainless knives is what I view to be a vastly more educated knife buying public than has existed before. This site, and others like it, is a big part of that. People who never would have gone searching for a book (if they could have found one) on blade steels can punch "most rugged outdoors knife" or something similar into a search engine and get linked to this place where professional knife makers and enthusiastic amateurs share their experiences.
Now, it's true that a 440C blade will not rust as readily as one made out of L6. You have to decide how important that is to you. I don't advocate refusal of maintenance on any tool that you wish to last, but the simple fact is that the appearance of rust does not mean that a blade is ruined or anywhere close. The leaf springs holding up the back of my truck are 24 years old and absolutely covered with rust---and they still flex under load and spring back every time. I've restored old knives that looked like they were solid pieces of rust, and when you get down below that surface about 1/64" there's nothing but pristine steel beneath. Unless you leave it in a pool of blood, ferric acid or saltwater, and if you make the tiniest effort to keep it clean, you're not going to see corrosion to levels that will affect the knife for many, many years and possibly not within your lifetime. The one area of performance that corrosion will show up noticeably in (with non-stainless steels) and that's dulling through oxidation, but that's easily solved by wiping the edge clean after use and (my method) giving both sides a swipe with chapstick to create a moisture seal. I've been doing it for years and it works extremely well.
Just as a by the way, I have hunting knives in ATS-34, VG-10 and other such "stainless" steels that have developed rust spots and pitting despite the fact that I never re-sheath a knife until it is clean and dry. Higher resistance doesn't mean immunity.
You don't see many axes made out of stainless steel, nor saws, nor hammers, nor screwdrivers. The reason isn't because of expense---there are people whose livelihood depends on these tools and they'll pay for genuine performance increases. The reason is that these tools encounter impact and torsional forces and the majority of stainless steels do not do nearly as well as their non-stainless brethren under that kind of stress. They just don't.
But that's fine---properly HT'd to the same hardness level (and again with the same geometry, etc.) a 440C skinning knife will hold an edge longer in that task than one made out of 1095 or O1, as the same properties that make it more difficult to sharpen also make it more resistant to the abrasive nature of skinning. BG42 will go even longer (gotta love that vanadium content).
No knife steel is a silver bullet that does everything better than everything else. All have areas where they excel and where they don't make the grade, and this information is pretty readily available, and you can use it or not. If you love 440C, go for it.
