I don't have personal experience, yet, with works of Kaartinen and Heikkinen, but I may have in future. I remember that there was a Finn member on the forum that has a Kaartinen Tommi and, if I recall correctly, he once wrote how he had to use it as harpoon to drag himself out of the water from a lake which ice didn't supported his weight.
Anyway in my previous post I was referring to the strangeness of how Kainuun asks less for a fully polished blade over an unpolished forged one. This made me think that basic blades might see a lot of grinding and little forging, somehow being cheaper/faster to craft. This is what I considered a shortcut.
Still I can guarantee that a rhombic blade takes 20-25 minutes of forging with hand held hammer to be done extremely close to the final shape and just requiring a very minor sanding. I once took the timing when visiting a smith.
I personally favour blacksmiths producing in smaller numbers and willing to discuss their working methods, possibly avoiding excessive self praising. I've grown extremely picky on knives in the last few years and I like to talk and discuss rather deeply about what I'm going to pay for. I've seen I can't do this, in the depth level I'd like, with companies.
As for silversteel I have experience with the K510 forged by Pasi Hurttila of Ivalo: I have seven puukkos in this steel made by him over the last five years. He does the heat treatment on the fire of the forge, following the steel colours and has done it for 14 years. The final edge hardness is around 60 HRC.
I managed to get some bad microchips and rolling on one of my puukkos only once, when I debarked and carved a red spruce stick. It was quite dark and later I realised I was carving into and against the grain.
It was all my fault and it took me just something like 15 minutes to restore the edge to hair popping sharpness going through DMT #600, #1200, #8000 and stropping with both coarse and polishing compound.
In my experience silversteel taken to 60 HRC has a very nice balance in edge holding and resilience. So far I actually have to find another carbon steel keeping an edge longer. Also, if taken beyond its limits, at this hardness it is more likely to roll instead of chip.
I like well also the 100Cr6 (52100) taken to 62 HRC as treated by Martti Malinen of Niinisaari. It holds the edge slightly less than K510 at 60 HRC and has basically the same toughness and reactions. Martti's blades tend to be more tapered and carving oriented than Pasi's ones.
Lately I've come also to really like 80CrV2 taken to 62 HRC, as treated by Pasi. I have it on my favourite carving knife and it really impressed me: it has the same edge holding of 100Cr6 at same hardness, but sports an insane edge stability, resilience and ease of sharpening usually common on spring steels.
Sorry for the long post
