If you sharpen on the opposite side as recommended by Victorinox, the serrations soon disappear and are still sharp in the process.
I totally understand where people are coming from when they talk about serrations and I would have been there with you until a couple of decades ago. Then, while we were staying at the
Alte Post in Grindelwald, my wife bought me a Victorinox Swiss Tool as a present. It's been on my belt more or less ever since.
The Swiss Tool has two knife blades (at least mine does, I believe they've changed the design a couple of times since mine was made). They are practically identical in size and shape but one is serrated, the other is plain. To be perfectly honest when I first saw the serrated blade I was a little disappointed. I thought it was a bit of a waste of space, material and weight. I wondered why they hadn't put a different tool in there instead. I never said anything like that to my wife of course.
At first I would use the serrated blade whenever I was doing a job that might involve some risk of damage to the edge. That was to leave the plain blade in as good a condition as possible, for other tasks. Over the years I gradually found myself using the serrated blade on occasion
in preference to the plain blade. And finally I have had to admit that I use the serrated blade now in preference to the plain one almost every time I use a blade -- which is probably between a couple of times a week and a couple of dozen times a day depending on what I'm up to. I even went so far as to get some India files (and I organized a
group buy and I still have some left
) which fit the serrations perfectly, so that far from letting them wear away with sharpening I can keep them as good as they ever were.
I really don't think people should discount a serrated edge just because it's serrated. I find that for cutting a whole host of things, from fabrics to ropes to plastic sheet, a serrated blade performs far, far better then a plain one. Granted if you want to cut a nice straight notch in a bit of wood you won't choose a serrated edge. I don't do that sort of thing often, and I have plenty of tools which will do it anyway. I'd probably use the saw blade.