Well, I don’t have much apart from what I read here previously Alan. What I know is that Majapahit is a hierarchical society. So status is probably reflected in objects they carried daily.
In your Pre-Islamic Interpretation paper, you mentioned that the number of tiers in Balinese temples reflects the level of the deity worshipped in the temple. More tiers showing the higher level of the diety. The number of tier happens to corresponds to the number of luks on a keris where 11 luk is the highest level if we count the luk in the smith’s way of making the luk. I think this is highly possible and I would imagine that the mantra for every luk is different. In this case, a commoner probably was only allowed to carry a straight blade. If the blades observed by Ma huan have luks, he would certainly mention it because it is a very important feature for a keris.
In Ma Huan’s journal he used the word pu-la’tao for keris. If I’m not mistaken, in Negarakertagama a different word was used for what is probably a keris. But it is not keris, dhuwung or curiga. (I am not too sure about this as I didn’t really study it throughly) Negarakertagama was written somewhere in the 1360 not too far from Ma Huan’s record in early 1400s. So, I am guessing they are using different name for different level of keris. A commoner keris is a pu-la’tao and at keris of nobles or priests are called with a different name – if what they carry is indeed a keris.
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