ok - obviously if i ask a question such as "are these knives good?"
a stock answer or reply might be "if you like them and they cut well
then they are good for you..."

This is true. The problem is that there is no real measurement of sharpness
and different people have different tastes in knives. I personally like
using a 10 inch chef's knife, but I know others who swear by a six inch
blade, and others who would kill if parted from their Chinese knife looks
like a cleaver, but in experienced hands is a precision instrument

People can pay hundreds for a really good top of the range knife, but if
they don't sharpen it and look after it properly, then its just a lump of
expensive metal. I haven't ever used any of these, but I'll bet that many of
them are more status and less substance as the price goes up. No dishwasher,
no storing it in the cutlery drawer where it can lie in wait for an
unsuspecting finger and bang against all the other metal in there. Wash it
by hand, dry and store it in a block or on a magnetic rack.

I recently bought a cheap supermarket paring knife. Only cost me £6, and
after a few minutes with a steel was cutting beautifully.

Look around the net or watch cooking programs on TV for ideas about knife
technique. If your knives can do stuff like slicing a tomato cleanly without
slipping around on the skin or crushing the flesh, or wandering off to one
side, then they are sharp enough. If you can cut whatever you wish to easily
without forcing the knife and hacking at the food, then they are good.

The job of a knife is to slice the food without crushing it. Look at the
surfaces of the cuts you make. If they are clean cuts, then the knife is
working.

There are variations on opinion, so I can only go with what I look for in a
knife.

A blade that is triangular in cross section. The stamped out ones are
rubbish as you have found.

A good solid handle. I prefer the ones where the handle is made of two
cheeks riveted onto the shaped tang of the blade, but the all metal ones
seem to be getting popular too.

On a chef's knife, a deep blade so I can chop things like garlic without
loosing my knuckles.

If you are using a steel and they are cutting well, and you are not having
to sharpen them every month, then they are good.

No idea what the letters on the knife mean. But generally, the higher the
carbon level, the harder the steel, so the sharper the blade can be.

John