It's very strange, but my M16-13Z, which has an AUS6 blade, can be sharpened and stays sharpened better than many of CRKT's AUS8 knives. I don't know why, but my Cold Steel knives with AUS8 blades also come sharp and stay sharp (to the point one can easily cut himself if he doesn't watch it). I will say that I have a special affinity for my titanium CRKTs. They're exceptionally beautiful, but like their lower cost brothers, they seem to only want to hold a "working" edge. This isn't bad because the knife will cut almost anything a knife can, but if you want one of these knives you can shave your arm with, forget the CRKT AUS8. I can sharpen my AUS6 blades to razor sharpness, and this is truly puzzling, but they will lose their edge after substantial cutting.
Another thing that's odd is that CRKT's knife Slidesharp doesn't seem to have the correct angle for sharpening CRKT's chisel grind knives. I say it's odd because so many of CRKT's knives have the chisel grind edge. The serrated parts of the blade also are a minus, as they're bumpy and don't cut well. I can take my Cold Steel Voyager with serrations and cut cleanly through a sheet of paper. With the bumpy types of serrations on many blades, you'll just tear the paper rather than cut it.
Having said all this, I've never had a loose CRKT knife. I didn't know that some knives are made in China while others are not, but I would have thought that one model was as good as another. Still, I have one Smith & Wesson HRT Magnesium knife that's obviously well made and fully functional (a first run) and about four others that are made in China and are just garbage. You can see the differences in materials and workmanship and you can feel it when opening and closing them. So who knows?
