It's my dream to own a full custom set of Shun blades. Alton Brown backs em so they have to be freaking bad...butt. Plus they're purdy.
But the knives I DO have are an old set of Henkles that were passed down from mom in law to the wifey. They're good but we wanted better so we've been collecting more Henkles blades of higher quality.
As far as keeping knives sharp, sharpening them only ruins the blade IMHO, instead, a proper honing will get that edge back in place. I'll explain...
As you chop stuff up with a nice sharp knife, the edge will bend ever so slightly making the blade seem to dull before your eyes. This happens more often with cheaper blades made of softer metal. The harder the metal the slower the degradation in sharpness.
My method for honing my knives is to count down from 8 to 1 alternating sides of the blade. I put the tip of my honing steel straight down on a cutting board and, using downward strokes from hilt to tip, do 8 left, 8 right, 7 left, 7 right, and so on til I get to 1. that results in a perfect honing of the knife and it will cut just like new.
Another tip on blade life preservation: use only wood or plastic cutting boards. glass and marble cutting boards are murder to a knife as they are harder than the metal of the knife. Plus they make a nasty racket if you get to chopping vigorously.