RC - I have no issue with what you do/did at the forge, only how you describe it. To be effective, the carbon must be exposed to the steel at high enough temperature to chemically combine. By repeated heating, folding, and hammering, you "kneeded" the steel much as one "kneeds" bread dough to mix in a little extra flour. By making the steel flow in the heating, hammering, and welding steps, you exposed a lot of new surfaces to the extra carbon you added. This increased the amount of steel exposed to extra carbon and allowed for a much more uniform alloy. A ten pound bar of iron would need less than a tenth of a pound of carbon added (absorbed) to become a serious high carbon alloy. The trick is, of course, to carbon without burning out the carbon in the surfaces exposed to air.
I have no reservations as to admiration of blacksmithing skills.
