Spyderco should also be up there. They came with so many innovations. Steelwise or some features you saw on high end customs became reachable fornthe everyday joe. And brought many custom locking mechanisms to the big market. They were the first with the one hand opening and the first with a pocketclip. And ofcourse with pocket sharpening solutions.
Though Andrew Demko is unequivocally a pillar of the current modern American knife community, in the era of the “holy trinity” he was still working at cold steel and not running his own shop. Cold steel was mostly making budget knives, in budget steels. Though they had the triad lock (designed by Andrew) they were not a pillar of the knife world.
