there are so many, too many good quality pocket knives these days. i see you value toughness and edge retention. what do you want to use it for? that can help determine what steel and design suits you best. bear in mind that if you pry things with a knife, or cut things harder than it (like hit rocks while cutting against the ground), most knives will likely chip

if you don't want to spend more than ~$50 on a knife, go with a civivi, or a ka bar dozier, or a cheaper spyderco like the tenacious. i'm not a fan but people like the ontario rat, and those are very inexpensive - probably will only slightly outperform the gerber though. imo the best knives for the money you can get are opinels, so if you don't care about ~tactical~ bs, hard to go wrong with one. if you want to spend over that there are infinite good options. benchmade are wildly overpriced. i mean they all are, but benchmade is esp bad. spyderco is a little more reasonable, and are generally just better knives.