I sharpen knives with Smith and similar keychains with the little carbide and ceramic "V's." Does ok on my Leeks. On kitchen knives and other fixed blades....Well, yes, I'm incompetent.
Luckily I'm a chef and have a bunch of stones at home and at work. Water stones are fairly cheap and very quick, compared to strops.
The knives i have to sharpen most are our kitchen and steak knives. When needed they undergo the full treatment on my edge pro at 28 degrees and i keep em up on the white stones on my spyderco sharpmaker thats in the kitchen drawer at 30 degrees. Once they become more difficult to sharpen they get a couple passes on the brown stones before the whites, once that doesnt go too easy anymore they go back on the edge pro (on the thinner knives the whole edge will be at 30 degrees at that point). Superthin knives like filet knives and my full flat grind chefs knife dont need the edge-pro at all, they are more than easy enough to handle on just the sharpmaker.
I am not very good with freehand sharpening, so I use a kit from DMT with an angle glide (similar concept to Lansky) and diamond stones. It works pretty well but I am intrigued by the carpet and fire hose methods.
I tend to gravitate towards a coffee mug or a medium diamond stone these days. I go for very sharp, but toothy.
