Pretty much. We know how it was produced, but we have better steel available and so nobody is willing to go through that much work to produce an inferior product. If you want a good sword you start with good modern steel and treat it like the book says - which includes give it as little time in the furnace as you can get by while shaping it. If you want a sword that looks pretty you can cheat to apply decorations that look like Damascus from a distance and that is good enough (you might or might not start with good steel, but if you do it is better than a real Damascus sword). Nobody has the patience to do things the old way as there is no advantage to it.

If the old way actually had advantages someone would do it. In the case of Damascus we have enough science to know it wasn't as good. There are other areas where people to go through the effort to create something the old way - either it isn't much more work (it may be more work, just not too much more), or the old way is somehow better.