Alex made many excellent points in regards to how different wootz reacts to a polish and etch. A superb pattern would have been preserved by most generations and this is why they are easy to etch because they would have received few polishes in their lifetime when well preserved. In regards to your two pieces just a couple of suggestions. On your dagger which is exhibiting sham pattern I recommend you bump up your etchant from vinegar to the Ferric Chloride. Make sure your blade is well cleaned before applying etchant. You want to remove as much rust as possible. Wipe blade clean with alcohol and then with gloves apply liberally the etchant solution, most dilute 3:1 or 4:1 with water, and continue for several minutes watching closely the blade for any improvement in the appearance of the pattern. Most importantly, you need to neutralize after each etch. A baking soda paste applied liberally to the blade will do fine. Dry the blade well and immediately oil blade. The etchant may leave some discoloration if not washed off and neutralized but this can be easily removed with some metal polish and a soft cloth. You can repeat the process several times to see if you get improved results.
With your twist core yat, one possible way to bring out pattern better, and this requires a lot of patience, is to polish the blade, follow process as mentioned above, rinse and neutralize and then polish blade again and repeat process. You may need to do the cycle 4 or 5 times to really start bringing the pattern out. Remember though, each time you polish(with stones, sandpaper, etc.) you remove tiny bits of metal from the surface. Over long periods of time the original contours of a blade can be compromised from over cleaning. However, this takes decades if not centuries of continued use so a cycle of 4 or 5 times should not be an issue.
Importanlty, as Alex comments, not all patterns are of high contrast. Take sham wootz for example. I have seen a tremendous range of contrast, pattern quality and consistency, ie no dead spots, within this one branch of pattern. So, if the original blade was of low contrast with minimal pattern and maybe forged at a slightly too high temperature resulting in some dead spots, then guess what. The blade is going to be that way today. However, with a blade out of polish, we often do not know until it has been etched. This is why some people will polish a window in a blade because you can focus on one spot, see how it turns out, before investing many hours to bring a full blade back into good polish.
Best of luck with your pieces!
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