Talk about hijacked.
But I'll agree with Codger. We do seem to thrive on change. We do seem to obsess over the latest CPU, TV, knife steel, camoflage, truck, etc.... Better living through new gadgets. It's practically part of our culture.
It's a product of the times. We have so many choices and even the poorest of us have enough money to look for the "perfect" rather than just the "good enough". I think in the much vaunted "old days" people used what they had because it's
all they had. You didn't have a choice of 18 brands of axe. You had what the local hardware store had (if you want to go way back, it's probably what the local blacksmith made). Knives? Same thing. Not because it was better, but because it's all they had to choose from without a long, laborious trip.
One of the attractions of knives for me is that they are such primitive tools. You can dress 'em up in fancy shapes and materials, but at the end of the day they are still defined by a point and an edge. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Yeah, I like the example of Oetzi the ice man. What did he have? Knife, copper axe, pack, skins for use as a sleeping bag/shelter, fire kit (the little birch thing he had -- actually carried a lit fire), bow. What do modern woodsmen carry? Knife, axe (or other appropriate chopper), sleeping/shelter kit, fire kit, pack, and often a projectile weapon, maybe a rifle or even still, a bow. Yes, technology changes, but the tools are the same.
Seen the new ceramic scalpels? Back to the stone age.
A better example is the obsidian scalpels. Yep, after millenia, we figured out that obsidian chips down to the molecular level, and we simply can't make anything as sharp. Now
that's stone age.
And really, if a tool can get the job done, how is it the 'wrong' tool for the job. Maybe some are better than others in terms of efficiency or cost. But a tool is a just tool.