I'll admit to having mixed feeling on it. I'll also go on record as saying I have a very strong predjudice for carbon steel, and lean toward plain 1095, or 5160.
But, and this is a big BUT, I've used production stainless and been happy with it. In 1967 I bought a Buck 301 stockman at an army PX, and for the next twenty something years it did just about everything I had to do with a pocket knife, and did it well. I also used a sak durring the 70's and it did well. Durring the late 80's I went back to using carbon steel in knives like Eye-brand, and Case sodbusters and Opinels. It did great.
I think that in the end it depends more on the quality of heat treat, and blade design and profile than steel. Stainless is less forgiving in heat treat, with a much narrower window in time and degrees, where simple carbon steel is more forgiving. But if one has the facilities and know how, like Paul Bos, you can end up with a stainless knife thats way better than a carbon blade made and heat treated by knifemaker X who may not be as good.
All in all, in the end if I were having a custom pocket knife made, I'd preffer a carbon steel. I have a gut level mistrust of the more complex stainless for knives. They may be the hot lick steels of the moment, but in the end all I want to do is cut something. I'm not interested in a steel thats used to make jet turbine fan blades or some other exotic use. A knife is a low tech tool.
If I may play the devils advocate,
If stainless is so good, why are Stanley utility blades, machetes, axes, and saws made out carbon tool steel. As is most using puuko's. Not to mention most tools. Certainly with the humid damp conditions of cental American jungles a stainless blade for Collins, Tramontina, and other brand machetes popular in Costa Rica and nieghboring areas, would be a plus. With modern production machinery 400 series blades could be blanked out with little trouble, but the simple carbon steel stays the norm.
Once in a great while I torment myself by doing cutting tests of knives. The kitchen floor will be ankle deep in sliced cardboard, shredded hemp, and the old lady will think I've lost my mind. I've tried to use all the modern stainless steels, borrowing a knife from a friend if I have to get a example of the new hot lick steel. After slicing till I have "cutting cramp" of the right hand I usually find the simple carbon steel has out preformed some of the lastest and greatest. But will it make a difference in day to day us? I doubt it. But if I'm shelling out the dough for a custom, I want the capability of the carbon there, if needed.
Kind of like shelling out the dough for a Porshe. If it's not faster than a Honda whats the extra money for?
Theres another side to the coin as well. Sooner or later I'll have to sharpen that knife. Not being a Ginso its inevitable. In my experiance the higher end stainless steels at some of the higher Rockwell numbers they have advertised is difficult to sharpen with minimum equiptment in the field. I like to be able to sit down on a log on the woods, or the tail gate of my truck, and in a couple of minutes sharpen my pocket knife on the little eze-lap hone I have in my wallet. To me ease of sharpening is important.
Carbon seems to be the best compromise of many blade qualities combining good edge holding, ease of sharpening in the field, ability to stand up to mild abuse without edge chipping, not to mention the ability to turn into that lovely grey patina that will go so well with the buttery yellow of the stag handles years down the line.
I think a shiney stainless blade would offend my sense of something when the rest of the knife has shown its age in the golden patine of stag. And if I'm getting a custom knife, it will have stag on it.
