Agreed, I've had both the ceramic and diamond "steels" handy for the last decade, and basically every time I use a knife I spend 30 seconds running it over one of these, and my kitchen experience is better for it. Of course, I'm the only one in my household that does this, but I use them frequently enough that generally it keeps them pretty good.
Was recently prepping some food at someone else's house, and they didn't even have a sharpener. It was a terrible experience, even after using the bottom of a coffee cup to help the knife out.