I did watch your video. It was pretty good. You explained things well.
Certainly, you did remove most of the burr. It's impossible to tell how much. Various sharpening methods fall on a spectrum, from very bad to near perfect. It was a little hard to tell, but it looked to me as though the paper's cut edge was a little ragged (fuzzy). And the noise of the cut was too loud, although it may have been from the electronic sound amplification. My test is to shave off hair-thin curly-cues with almost no sound and leaving the paper's cut edges sharp.
What you did, as you said, was remove the original burr by creating a microbevel. But then you went back to reforming a new apex that wasn't a microbevel and that had less of a burr. I can't judge from the video how well you did that. I'd need the edge or photos that Todd can do.
The real problem is that you are freehanding the edge. No doubt, there are many expert knife sharpeners who can create an extremely sharp edge freehand. But they have to feel their way into. And it's very hard to freehand remove the burr at the bevel angle, which you were trying to do.
You said you were sharpening at 7 or 8 degrees (7-8 dps). But it's really, really, really hard to overcome geometry freehand.
So, your blade like looked like it was about 1.25 inches wide, with the width getting smaller as you went down to the tip.
At 1.25 inches, a 7 degree edge requires you to hold the spine 0.15 inches off the stone. At 8 degrees, it's a half millimeter higher. At 6 degrees, it's a half millimeter lower. Plus, that distance varies as you lift up the blade to follow the edge down to the tip. As you get closer to the tip, the raised height of the edge has to be held at a much tighter tolerance than 0.5 mm. I doubt that you or anyone can do that. That's why a jig is so important.
If you're trying to follow the bevel angle to remove the burr, and you are a half millimeter low, you'll just be polishing the shoulder. The burr won't even know you're there. A half mm higher, and you're created a new microbevel.
With the Wicked Edge system, I can hold the exact angle. Every time. So when I'm done with one grit and I have a small burr hanging off the edge, I can come back down on the burr at the exact bevel angle and cut it off with a 1/8th inch stroke.
The thing with the burr is that it gets smaller as you use lighter, shorter strokes with ever finer grits. Go out far enough with higher strokes and finer grits with a decent technique, and it will be mostly gone. What's left of the burr will be nearly aligned with the bevel and contribute to the initial sharpness, although not durability of the edge.
But by using geometry to cut off the burr without creating a new burr, allows you to have a burr-free edge at much higher grits. Then the strop just refines the edge to jack up its keeness.
