Okay,
Edge shoulders do not get thicker towards the point because of intentional designs for strength (okay maybe a few makers actually worry about it but I'm referring to the vast majority). They get thicker towards the point because they have to --unless the blade is either rectangular without a point OR the spine drops down to make a point meeting a perfectly straight edge (wharncliffe or sheep's foot pattern).
I don't have a good graphics program working so please excuse the ghetto nature of this drawing, but I just knocked it out really quickly. I'm simplifying here--most knifemakers "roll" a knife as they grind it when they hit the belly and don't hold an angle perfectly consistent to the spine, but the basic principle is the same.
If you're planning to sharpen professionally, you need to understand this---you do NOT have a choice as to whether the edge bevel gets wider towards the point, unless you intentionally change the angle as you go. If the edge bevel angle is consistent and your knife comes to a point, then it absolutely MUST get wider towards the point, with only one exception which I'll talk about at the bottom.
Now, look at this very crude drawing of two flat ground "blades"---the top one is a square blade with no point, and the bottom is a blade of exactly the same height but which curves up into a point. The smaller drawings to the side are as if you were looking directly at the front of each.
So, let's pretend (these are not realistic measurements--I'm trying to keep the math simple for the example) that the knives are 1/4" thick at the spine and 1/16" thick by the time the primary grind has descended the whole height of the blade. So, when sharpening, the two new bevels each need to remove 1/32" of total thickness in order to meet in the middle and make a cutting edge. Okay, the knife on top is perfectly rectangular. The edge shoulder intersects the primary grind at exactly the same height along the whole blade. As such, the bevel is exactly the same width along the entire blade.
Now move to the other blade---remember, they're exactly the same height to begin with, but wait! The height of the second blade is decreasing as it moves toward the point. It's still 1/4" thick up top, but that primary grind is having less and less space to remove thickness up front. In fact, at half the blade height (the middle blue line in the second knife) the blade has only dropped down to 1/8" thick at the edge. So now, in order to meet in the middle, the bevels need to each remove 1/16" of thickness. If the angle at which the edge is ground remains the same along the entire length of the blade, then the width of the bevel absolutely MUST get wider as the edge shoulder gets thicker. I drew this on lined paper for a reason---look at the height of the profile of the blade at any blue line going up and then move over to the straight-on shot right next to it and see how much thicker the cross section of the blade is at the same height. There is no way around it. The red line with "X"s in it represents the bevel you're envisioning, but the wider, solid red line above it is the actual bevel.
The only way you could keep the bevel the same width is to increase the edge angle (getting steeper and steeper as you move towards the point). Regardless of which you think looks more professional, that's the end of it. In fact, intentionally creating the illusion of an "even" bevel by thickening the cutting edge up front, essentially reducing the cutting performance in order to achieve an aesthetic effect, actually WOULD be unprofessional.
Now, I mentioned an exception:
If the primary bevel was ground in way to keep the cross section consistent throughout the length, obviously that would be different. If the knife has a distal taper so that the spine gets thinner as it moves towards the tip, and it happened to do so in a perfect ratio so that it was the same percentage reduction in thickness as the percentage reduction in blade height along the entire length of the blade, your consistent-angle edge bevel would also have a consistent height. I will point out, though, that I have something like five dozen knives with distal tapers (or more) and none of them have the ratio right--they still end up a little thicker at the tip.
On almost all knives, your edge bevel will widen as you move towards the tip if you are keeping a consistent angle.
Oh, and yes, depending where you clamp the blade (and how long it is) a clamp system will vary the angle slightly as your stone moves away from where the blade is clamped. However, we're talking differences of one or two degrees at most unless it's a large blade, and then you can move the clamp. Some small variation will still occur from sharpening to sharpening, but it will be slight and NOT result in a dangerously fragile, thin tip that you need to worry about. At least, not unless your whole edge is dangerously thin and fragile.
. The string and cardboard thing- is that sincere or mocking? Someone please clarify things for me before I go on.