James Watriss
Is a setup with diamond powder and cast iron lapping plates fancy?

To some folks, yes. Fancy, newfangled, or downright arcane to anyone who doesn't spend too much time in online forums.

Back in the normal world, where many of us came from, our now-normal things weren't really on the menu. They're things we looked for and found.

In truth, I think the really relevant point was that he had such good results with Arkansas stones. That's the norm I grew up with. And it was EASY: 2 stones, in fitted wooden boxes, some mineral oil, and a rag, tucked in a drawer in my bench.

Water stones made more mess. I used diamond paste on MDF, and later acrylic, because my iron shapton lapping plate had gone out of flat on me, and I didn't want to worry about that with diamonds. MDF and acrylic are cheap and disposable, but not robust. And while going through the diamond grits took more time, I was happy with the final polish.

After a while I regressed to water stones. And since then, I've been wanting to go back to fewer, oily stones, at the bench for convenience and speed.

I'm with you on the edge life issue. I'm a fan of M2 and M4 because they take such a keen edge, hold it well, and aren't a bear to sharpen like D2. But even Konrad Sauer ultimately went back to high carbon for his planes because it was fast and easy to sharpen, and he was therefore more likely to do it. And honestly, I've been getting back to that myself. The faster, easier sharpening job is more important than the ultimate edge holding ability. That, to me is the selling point.

I feel like people drifted towards harder or more exotic alpha-numerical steels because they promised less maintenance. But I've watched a lot of novices struggle with sharpening because those steels are harder to sharpen. I'm not really interested in claims of longer immaculate edge life: I'd rather it be easily maintained.

In the end, though, while I liked what I heard, I agree that the review was dubious. It sounded more or less like it performed like high carbon, and sharpened like high carbon... But costs more.

So... I'm left with the impression that I should buy high carbon blades, if the performance is roughly equivalent. Lacking data, and possessing the array of steel that I currently do, I'll sit this one out and watch to see what happens.