Um, actually Chris, Sabatier(Thiers-Issard),Henckels, Global and most of the other big brand names are almost all stainless steel.
I would give their links to their catalogs but my browser is acting retarded today, very slow.
There are some makers that still have plain carbon steel knives, but there are not many. As noted by Tom L they are mostly Japanese and they are usually traditional sushi knives.

The big reason chefs want stainless steel isn't to prevent the knife blade tarnishing, it is because they don't want their food colored by the steel.
Carbon steel colors a lot of veggies and fruit by reacting with the acids in them as you are slicing and dicing.

I can't give Redflare a great answer.

I recognize that the requirements are pretty severe and the requirements vary with what each knife is made for.
(A meat cleaver calls for different steel and temper than a fillet or boning knife does.)
The question gets into which steel is best for each of the different knives in a chefs tool roll.

I wish I could be of more use on this one, but the short answer is still stainless.

Edit:
I have heard that the European manufacturers use a lot of the 425M, 12C27, 440A types of steel which are all pretty similar alloys, but I can not readily confirm who is using what.
VG-10 and VG-1 seem to be OK too.

If you want you might look at RWL34 rapidly solidified stainless, but I hear it is pricey, and fussy about tempering.