It can get complicated.
If you start looking at different steel types, the tougher steels can give you just as much(or more) impact toughness with less thickness.
Then, you can investigate the better slicing ability of the thinner blade, but still have a knife that's as tough as a thicker one with a lesser steel would be.
Steels like CPM-3V are like that. For example, A2 is considered a good tough tool steel for survival knives or hard-use knives. But CPM-3V is twice as tough as A2, and depending on the RC hardness used it might be nearly triple the toughness of A2. That's some very tough stuff. So, you don't necessarily need as thick of a blade when you use a steel like that. And then you can have a lighter knife that's just as tough, and you can exploit the thinner blade for better slicing geometry.
That's just a quick look into what you can get out of the higher alloy steels. It's not just that they might be tougher, or more wear resistant, but the way the maker can use those properties to give you a knife that works as tough as a big thick heavy knife, with a thinner knife that can slice better too.
Busse INFI is also tough like that, but way out of your price range.
For some nice CPM-3V knives, you can probably find one of a smaller size from Fehrman Knives near your price range. You can also get a Bark River Necker 2 3V for about $110 in skeleton form. Scales would cost more. These would be knives in the 3.5" blade length area.
Bark River has a pretty wide selection in CPM-3V in some longer knives too, but they are a bit higher(or a lot higher in some cases) than your stated price range. Same with Fehrman.
If you can live with a 3.5" blade length, the Bark River Necker 2 3V is well under your price limit, and is a very nice knife.
