They are very pretty, and I love mine.
But “are they really a higher quality knife”… that’s not as straightforward. First, there are dozens of knifemakers that produce a Damascus-style knife, and these range in quality from decent to exceptional. It’s more costly to produce, so they are all better than the cheapest mass-produced junk (I’ve never seen a ‘below average’ version), but there are many quality knives which can hold their edge (pun intended) to even the best Damascus knives. Some of those won’t cost you a ton to own. And of course there’s personal preference in terms of knife edge, hardness, handle, weight, length, etc that are specific to the cook.
Ultimately, once you have a decent knife what matters is how you care for it. If you know how to sharpen, hone your edge and don’t do bone-headed things then most of the “non-junk” knives can be great, Damascus or not.