Let's put this in perspective. At the very low-tech end, some awesome choppers/comp knives have been made from 1080/1084 steel, which is about as simple as it gets. The infamous Noss tested a factory Crowell/Barker Comp Cutter far, far beyond what most of us would ever do to a knife, and it performed ridiculously well.
CPM-3V is awfully darn good for knives large (58Rc) or small (60-62Rc). It's tougher than any sane user would ever need, holds an edge very well, and is not terribly bad about rust/pitting - roughly equal to D2. Reports of it being difficult to sharpen are grossly overstated, and in my opinion, often have as much to do with lousy edge geometry as they do with wear-resistance.
CPM-M4 is used in a great many
winning competition cutters. It's not nearly as tough as 3V, but has significantly better wear-resistance. Check out some comp vids - these guys beat the dickens out of their blades
and do very fine, controlled cuts.
At the far end of the alloy spectrum, a respected maker named Farid has made a couple of 68Rc (!)
choppers out of
CPM REX 121, a super-duper tooling steel with crazy high amounts of carbon, vanadium and tungsten that is not at all known for toughness. He overcame its lack of toughness with extreme geometry.
I'm working on a comp/camp style knife with an alloy that I don't think anyone has used for that purpose before. It has better toughness than M4, equal to or possibly better edge-retention than 3V, and is far more corrosion-resistant than either.