I have been making high grade custom knives for many years. See attached photo of pocket knives with contrasting satin/polished finishes. Most collectors request a satin finish on the blade, mainly becouse a perfect satin finish is much more difficult to achieve than a polished (buffed) finish. To get the perfect satin finish the blade has to be polished to the point where only a light buffing would be required. The satin finish must be applied with all the lines running in one direction. The problem with satin finishes is that even a very light mark which would hardly show on a highly polished blade will stick out like a sore thumb on the satin finish.
I agree that most of the cross graining on knives produced today are a result of an abbreviated polishing process. A higher grade polish would add to the cost and would be of little benefit to a using knife. It is interesting to note that most of the larger TR dagger manufacturers also produced pocket knives, some models with with flawless highly polished blades.
Wolfgang