I prefer synthetic waterstones for most of my sharpening, with DMT Dia-sharp diamond plates for coarse work, but for simple sharpening in the field it's tough to beat the Edgemaker Pro system. I agree that most pull-throughs are junk but the EMP is different. The compound steels flex inward under pressure, using leverage to help remove steel & put an edge on quickly. A set of all three grits is only $30 with free shipping, but if you want to economize the 2 pc kit (comprising the top 3 out of the 4 available grits) will suffice. In practice the yellow Honer is enough if you use it regularly. My dad gave me on that he'd been using for 15 years and it still works well.

Of course, all pull throughs have some limitations. The EMP has worked well on 95% of the blades I've tried it on but I suppose there are some it wouldn't like. It's not designed to do convex so it wouldn't be ideal for a Bark River or something like that. But it's effective on the vast majority of knives.