I'm a steel- and blade-junkie, so most of my knives are made of steels that have pretty good edge retention. My EDC pocket knife is ZDP-189. For most purposes I can't imagine two or three knives getting too dull to use. You could skin and process several large beasties without dulling a really good knife.

I'm also a semi-professional sharpener. My preferred methods of sharpening, namely a belt sander and Japanese natural & synthetic water stones, aren't terribly portable. I think it's difficult to do a good sharpening job in the field, and I set the bar very, very high for what I consider an acceptable sharpening job.

That said, I do sometimes have a hone or a strop. I completely agree that they're handy in the field, but I don't consider stropping/honing/steeling to be sharpening, just truing. At work I keep a borosilicate glass honing rod made by Hand American as well as a fine Idahone ceramic. The glass one is used on very hard Japanese knives, like Super Aogami or powders at 62-64 Rc. When one of my gyutos won't shave I give it two licks per side on the boro hone. When that won't bring it back to shaving sharp I use the ceramic. When that won't make it shave I resharpen the knife on water stones.