I went the opposite in my sharpening journey. I started with water stones and had a set from super coarse like 120 grit natural stones (Amakusa and another really coarse one) up to an Ozuka Asagi super hard stone 20K+, I think there were about 20-25 natural stones I had? I also had synthetic stones in the 220-12,000 range, and strops with down to .25 micron diamond. Bester, Suehiro, Rika, Naniwa, Shaptons, Nortons, Kings, etc. I had a Latte 400, Bester 1200, Rika 5K permasoaking in a bucket for around 12 years or so and I used them on every knife I had and made, after roughing in the edge bevel on a slow, wet 120 belt on my belt sander. I used waterstones exclusively on Japanese kitchen knives for years, too for my sharpening needs. Thinning was done on the belt sander and then stones. Then I got into steels like CPM 20CV, S90V, etc. and making my own knives. The Shapton GlassStone 320 was added worked great on those, but the other stones were very slow, which introduced more wobble and less clean edges on the high wear resistant steels. And I had to flatten more often, so it was taking time. So I looked at diamond stones/plates.
Now I use a Sharpal 325/1200 and some leather strops with 14 micron/3 micron diamond pastes on rough/smooth side respectively. I also play with a 40 micron/1 micron diamond paste strop, too as part of the process. So much faster than the water stones! Rough the bevel with 120 belt, 325 diamond, deburr with 40 micron diamond strop, then 1200 diamond, then deburr with 14 micron diamond strop, then super light finishing strokes with the 1200 diamond, then 3 micron and 1 micron strop. I've been very happy with the edges on every steel I have used (some don't need to go all the way down; I strop my Magnacut gyuto a few passes on the 40 micron and then 1 micron sides and micro chips are gone and it's stupid sharp again after a month or 2 of use) from kitchen knives, pocket knives and edc fixed blades. I test cut with newspaper and receipt paper and my blades will cut 2-3 times the blade length in these materials. The trick with diamonds is regulating your pressure. By varying the pressure/grit on the stones/strops, you can get a toothy, but smooth edge, a more convexed edge, etc. I took an AEB-L hunting knife with a visible flat line at the apex and stropped it back to sharp (arm hair shaving) in under 5 minutes with the 14/3 micron strop. I find customers can keep an edge sharp easier with the strops than they can with stones; more forgiving with the angles and the coarser grits work quickly, so it's a quick, easy way to touch up a knife.
Water stones are fun, but I found the diamonds easier to get a nice, clean edge and much faster. And they don't need flattening!
