That is odd. I would trust the people who do professional work via this site. But if it was someone else, it might be that you are being put off by someone who is set up to do only light honing, like a razor might need after a lot of normal use. This one, though it may have sharpened a pencil or settled a gang fight in its time, doesn't look irrecoverable.
The only purely metallurgical problem I can think of is having the hardness drawn in a house fire. This is quite comon with Japanese swords, due to their tradition of building houses of paper and firewood. It would be difficult to reharden it without distortion, although perhaps worth risking an eBay $22. Horn scales would show any such accident, but ebony mightn't.
Thank you for your kind remarks, although I am uncomfortably aware that the bulge in his pocket is very like his "ivory" celluloid safety razor box.