TomD
"There are plenty of modern steels that are quite as easy to sharpen as Japanese chisel steels - you just need to use diamonds. I could just as easily tell you that I refuse to consider Japanese chisels because I can't sharpen them on the oil stones I already have (no idea if that would be true or not, just turning your reasoning around)."

You can sharpen them with any method including power that applies to any other tool. What stands out most about a lot of the promoters of other methods (not directed at you), is they don't actually seem to have tried any of this.

"That you can't sharpen a chisel with your existing stones may quite reasonably influence your purchasing decisions, but that does not invalidate the whole question for the rest of us, who may well be at a point where a sharpening method upgrade is overdue "

And you can sharpen A2, which is what we are told the new PM stuff will be like, easily, on waterstones, oil stones, sandpaper, power or buffing. But again, the mythologist around here seem to start their scientific inquiries, by resolutely not learning the old methods or how to do them well, so their miracle breakthrough methods do seem miraculous to them. Machinist have been sharpening nasty HSS on a dry grind wheel with a buff or arkansas stone wipe for maybe 100 years. The problem is that a lot of people do not want to use dry grinders for whatever reason. It's not the diamonds that are getting the job done, it is the dry grinding. The diamonds are great however, but there aren't really any points in them unless you have carbide to handle. If you are dry grinding, you might as well buff, it is faster and cleaner, maybe cheaper, and the catalog stores have been selling the gear for 35-40 years.

"I agree however, that if the LV offerings can pair edge life with universal ease of sharpening, they'll have a winner - how could they not?"

Except they say it is A2 with a better cycle rating, which is fabulous, but will not make people feel better about sharpening it on the numbers, we can hope for a wave of acceptance due to the marketing wave.