It's just not really in the best interest of a company to put the best edge they possibly can on a knife when a large majority of their target consumer base is either not interested in the factory edge because they're going to sharpen it themselves, it's "eventually going to need sharpening", or the surprisingly common "It's brand new, of course it's sharp."
I mean, as far as the people out there that are demanding knives come from the factory as sharp as possible, they seem to be pretty few and far between. I think most people are happier with production knives having the moderately sharp knife because that translates into saving on their end, and they're going to sharpen it themselves anyway. On the other hand, you also have higher-end knives, semi-custom and custom knives to fill in the market for those who do want screamingly sharp edges right out of the box.
Personally I've never really cared how sharp a knife comes out of the box, but it helps when they start out sharp, so I'm not really against a knife company putting extra effort into sharpening it--but not at a significantly higher expense. I think when you get into the realm of other, more expensive knives, that "screaming sharp" edge is just included as a courtesy with the package.
I kind of hate making analogies... But if you buy a car, you come to find that most options you have to pay a little extra for, when really they should be on the car by default to make it as good as car as it could be. What you often find is that, when you pay a higher price for a luxury car versus your economic everyman's-vehicle, you find most of the options that people are paying extra for in those vehicles come as standard for the price you're paying on a luxury car.
Anyway, don't invest too much stock into that analogy, what I mean is that I think that a knife coming with a super-sharp edge right out of the box is kind of a "package" or something to be expected on a "luxury" knife. If you're just picking up the economic everyman's knife down at the hardware store, it's better for it to have only a moderately sharp knife; it keeps prices a bit lower, and it makes still applies to a large group of people: Those that are going to sharpen it themselves and aren't concerned with the factory edge, and those who just don't need anything sharper. From what I"ve seen those two types of people are far more common than those wiling to pay much higher prices for much sharper factory edges. Generally whenever someone is enough of a knifenut to care, they're also enough of a knifenut to get those edges themselves.
Speaking of knifenuts, I think there's a bit of a complex most of us have where we judge a factory edge based on what we would expect from the edges we'd sharpen or the knives we'd make. The issue is that most of us have very high standards for other characteristics of knives, so when it comes to knife edges, I personally think knife nut's set the bar far too high for factory edges to satisfy them.
In all honesty, there are many factory edges that I've seen that are not so far behind that I ever feel a need to sharpen them past liking to do my own profiling and polishing. When it comes to factory edges that are too dull to do the most mundane and expected of tasks (tape,paper,rope,packing) I've really not found a knife company that I can say makes them. They might not pop hair off of their arm or whittle it into decorative statues, but most people do not require this nor even expect it; I remember the first Victornix SAK I got was sharp enough to shave my arm hair, and I never even realized a pocket knife could shave hair and kind of related it to "mythlore" when I'd see western movies or the like showing cowboys shaving with their knives. Imagine my surprise years later when I found out the "impossible" Elmer Fudd hair-splitting axe was actually not as much a tall tale as I thought, watching people whittling hairs, and cutting them in half under gravity.
I mean, I know that most people here would probably prefer to have the sharpest edge possible, I think that we're actually a pretty small reflection of the actual community of people purchasing and using knives. I mean, we're part of a pretty small number of people that even realize knives can do some of those amazing feats of sharpness, yet a lot of the times people act as if this is the only indicator of a "good" edge and that one which simply cuts paper fantastically is only mediocre--not good but not bad. In the grand picture of things, I think that if knives started coming with edges sharp enough to whittle hair and everything, your average user would not even notice.
