I've got the lansky set, and a spyderco sharpmaker. They are both good if your knife already has an edge at one of their standard angles.
The sharpmaker (which is just two ceramic rods held at an angle) is by far the easiest and quickest, and produces a wicked edge. If your edge is a little (or a lot) away from the angles though, you either have to angle the knife blade to match (largely defeating the purpose of the stand) or reprofile it (my choice). A little reprofiling can be done on the coarse rods, but it's slow going for heavy reprofiling.
The lansky is excellent if you need to remove a lot of material; either to reprofile or recover a badly damaged edge. I only use it for those purposes, profiling to one of the sharpmaker's angles. Then I use the sharpmaker.
The lansky-types do make life easier when grinding. I can do hand grinding on a stone quite accurately, and sometimes choose to, depending on the blade shape and angle that I want. But most of the time I'll use the lansky because, as you say, it's pretty much idiot proof and I can do it without full concentration. I reground a long carving knife with just the lansky; now it's really, scary sharp.
For long blades, you need to move the blade along in the clamp, sharpening in sections. Otherwise the angle changes. Also be careful on bends, try to get the blade clamped so that the stone moves in the same curve as the blade. It's quite easy really, and much easier than trying to keep the same angle freehand.
I would recommend them.
Rick.
