Four questions. One honest recommendation for the way you actually sharpen.
The quiz weighs three things: how much control the tool gives you, how much skill it demands, and whether it can fix real damage. Pull through sharpeners are fast but remove metal aggressively and cannot reprofile. Guided systems produce excellent edges with almost no learning curve but take setup time. Stones do everything and cost the least, but the first few weeks of freehand work will be humbling.
Chipped or damaged edges change the answer. Fixing a chip means removing serious metal, which takes a coarse stone, a belt, or a powered system. A pull through or a ceramic rod will never get there.