I've been using waterstones to sharpen kitchen knives, woodcut tools, and Japanese wood block gouges/knives/chisels by hand for thirty years and I'm ready to pull the trigger on an Apex system myself. In spite of being as careful as possible, when I use a 10x loupe to look at the edge of a knife that I've hand sharpened for numerous years, I see minute wobbles and variations in the bevel that can't be good for ultimate sharpness. I think the Apex system would be great for occasionally straightening and truing knife bevels back to a constant angle. Maybe there's a place for both hand sharpening and sharpening systems in the long term.
