re: Cutco Knives- they any good?

They're great knives. I prefer my Shuns, but the couple Cutcos i have are great.

Nope. Expensive trash.
Dexter russell is infinitely better.

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But, nobody acknowledges that you can’t sharpen them at home yourself because of the type of steel they use for chef knives

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Horsepucky. It is just a 440a steel at an Rc of about 55. I sharpen powdered metallurgy steels of over 64 Rc without any serious issues. Cutco steel can easily be sharpened on standard water stones or even using the Scary Sharp method (sandpaper on float glass). There is nothing remotely exotic about their steel. It is also not a bad steel for blades at all and very similar to what the German mass-market brands use but it isn't as hard as Japanese steels but as I mentioned earlier harder steels don't mean better unless you have a preference for harder blades.

By and large serrated blades are more difficult and for most people impossible to sharpen but they are also a compromise. Serrated steak knives for example don't cut as cleanly as straight blades and they cause more juice leakage but dull more quickly while the serrations protect much of the cutting surface from the plate. Personally, the only serrated knives I own are bread knives and I use and offset handle Dexter and it stays sharp for about 10 years and I just replace it.

One other thing that is important about a knife is balance and how well it fits your hand using a proper grip. Cutco tang/handle tends to be light and thus blade heavy they also don't have a big tang offset some people will not like the balance (some will) and people with big hands may find their knuckles hit the cutting board before the heel of the blade.

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Any knife that cannot cut a shoe and be bought at 3am from aTV commercial and does not have a lifetime guarantee is no good.

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It has to be able to cut through a shoe, steel toed boot, skin a rhinoceros, cut thru a tin can and then slice a tomato paper thin.