Cool. I guess it's just that there's a lot more demand for gun barrels than swords in recent centuries. So there's not much practical experience, and the delusion persists that the old ways are better.
But still, the patterns can be beautiful. I've seen blades with patterns that resemble engravings. Maybe the approaches could be merged, to yield modern performance with classic beauty.
But why? The hypothetical people who would actually fight with such things today don't care about how it looks. Go to a gun show or AR15 enthusiast forum and compare how those guns look with those that people in the military or SWAT teams use. Playing with guns/swords is fundamentally different from actually relying on them not to die. And then you have the people who like knives/swords for how they look, and would like to be able to argue that 'their' sword/knife also has the most utility if it were to be actually used. But they already do that, and are fully convinced of it, too! And the lack of actual substantive evidence (even if one could devise a single optimum function by which to measure each knife/sword...) is what keeps all these people, and the whole industry, going. So it's in nobodies interest to have one single 'best' thing. (and that's even ignoring that the amount of idiocy and stubbornness in such communities is staggering - look at the comments on the OP!)
Yeah, I guess. Me, I just have a military-issue machete. It isn't pretty, but it's tough, and holds a good edge. All I've killed with it are weed trees, though ;)