Two things come to mind about steels:
A quote from an old buddy of mine, "Jesus Christ, Himself, could send a bar of steel down from Heaven. It will only be as good as the heat treatment it gets."
And, when talking about a simple function, like "skinning", Jeff is 100% correct. Even more precisely, the edge geometry probably has more to do with it that any one thing.
Our biggest challenge is to learn how to heat treat a steel according to its requirements, and create the blade shape and geometry to perform the tasks for which the knife was designed.
There are a BUNCH! of "steels" that will skin quite well - if that's what the maker made the knife to do.