I don't agree with the premise of the question -- that we can grade steels on some kind of hierarchical system without mentioned intended use, and end up with something meaningful. For any of the steels mentioned, I can find a particular usage for which the supposedly-inferior steel will work better than the supposedly-superior steel. Given any two steels, I can find a usage for which the inferior steel holds its edge longer. In short, this type of ranking either ends up as a popularity contest, or ends up having unspoken context around the expected usage, and in neither case are the lists of "these are good steels, these are not" all that accurate.
If you just want to put a neat little list together, and don't care if it's particularly accurate, then going this route is fine. If you actually want to understand steels in some meaningful way, I suggest going about it in a totally different way.
First: get a handle on the properties of steel that effect performance. There are a lot of these, and can get very technical (there are whole sciences devoted to it), but a reasonable place to start is look at: strength, wear resistance, toughness, rust resistance.
Second: get a handle on what types of jobs require relatively more of the properties I just named above. What does chopping hardwoods require? What about splitting? What about whittling? What about cutting carpet? What about food prep? What about a plain ol' EDC folder?
Third: Get a handle around this principle: the edge retention of a steel is not just its wear resistance, or its strength, or its toughness -- it's a function of the steel properties and how well they work
for a particular usage. If X has more wear resistance than Y, you cannot say "X steel holds an edge better than Y steel", because what if I find a job (e.g., whittling) where edge
strength is a more important determiner of edge retention than wear resistance is, and X steel is very weak where Y steel is very strong?
Fourth: Put it all together. Figure out which steels are good for which jobs, and why. Above, it was suggested that 440A should be avoided, but S30V is great. When you get to this point, you should be able to say why 440A might be a better choice than S30V for a low-maintenance saltwater dive knife. You should be able to say why 440A might be better than ATS-34 for a big chopper. And you should be able to say why S30V and ATS-34 might be better choices than 440A for an EDC folder. You'll think in terms of "which properties are needed for the intended purpose of this knife, and which steels have good mixes of those properties", which will get you closer to the right answer, instead of thinking in terms of "here is the list I got from the internet of good steels and bad steels", which will sometimes get you the right steel for the job but sometimes lead you astray.
This is a slightly longer road to gain knowledge, but once you have even a basic grasp of the above, you'll be more knowledgeable than most knife people. Here's a link that will help you along. It is item #10, entitled "Steel":
http://www.edcknives.com/vcom/knife_knowledge.php
There are many companies that make good folders and many that make complete crap. Spyderco has been popular for a very long time and they make a knife that isn't too expensive yet does the job well.
and if it says 440 Surgical Stainless... that's a dbl 
Can I keep the 4-inch sheath knife with the D2 blade?
