The biggest reason for not normalizing stainless is it doesn't need it. See the post above. For most cutlery stainless steels, normalizing is not recommended by the manufacturers. In many cases, stainless can't be normalized in the sense that knife makers think about it. Since most cutlery grade stainless is air hardening, heating it above critical and allowing it to air cool will harden it. This gives completely different effects than normalizing carbon and low alloy steels.
In the textbook definition of normalizing, the steel is heated high enough to dissolve all the carbides. Many high alloy stainless steels have carbides that will not dissolve until after the alloy begins to melt, so this definition of normailzing is out as well.
In carbon and low alloy steels, normalizing is sometimes used to make the structure more uniform after forging. I say sometimes because it has other uses. With hand hammering, uniformity of forging effort is pretty much impossible. Some areas will get more and others less. Grain size and other features can vary widely. These differences can lead to rapid changes during hardening. For instance, larger grains adjacent to smaller ones will grow rapidly as they absorb the smaller grains. A uniform structure is much more predicable during heating and cooling. Makers of air hardening steels generally recommend annealing and caution against normalizing.
