Hi Robert! Welcome to the WEPS forum!

You say you're looking for the best finish possible - can you clarify a little more? Do you want an aesthetic super polished finish, a long lasting functional finish, or sharpener than anyone in all eleven dimensions of time and space?

Super polished include the WEPS pastes and the Choseras up to 10K. A long lasting functional edge will be the finish off the ceramic 1200 and 1600 paddles, the Chosera 2K and 3K, and the Shapton 1500 and 2K stones. Super sharp will require the Shapton 15K and 30K followed by the Hand American and Ken Schwartz compounds.

For your knives, I would be more likely to do a series of Diamond and/or CBN on balsa after the 1K WEPS diamonds. You can clean things up nicely off the 1K Diamonds first by going to the Ceramic WEPS, the Chosera 1K or the Shapton 1500.

Of course there are a thousand ways to get a good edge. So follow this method:
You decide to go with the 1000 diamonds, followed by the 1600/1200 ceramics.
Next, you want to go to strops with 1 and .5 Micron Diamond Paste.

Given the above, would you go with leather or balsa strops?

Thanks glad to join, This could be a new obsession!
Well I guess I would be looking for all three for different knife right and at different levels of my personal skill?. A mixed you know Some that are functionally stronger and some that super polished. This would also justify a ever growing collection of knives:P haha

If I had to answer that question my ideal edge would be something that very polished, functionally very sharp and strong enough to use on a regular basis. The knifes mentioned above would be included in the "user" part of my collection. So at this point I am interested in in having the sharpest blade in all seven dimensions but I think it will probably be a skill mastered in the next upgrade in the progression. I like leather but then again I don't have that much experience in balsa stropping. I would probably enjoy the switch.

How strong would the edge be if I used the diamond paddles up to 1000 then the 1200,1600 ceramics and used then the 1 and .5 maybe the .25 diamond spray? I am thinking they would be pretty well polished and still screaming sharp but not unworldly sharp. Is that safe to assume?

One viable option for a fantastic edge that suits all your purposes would be to create an super polished bevel and then add in a tiny, somewhat toothier micro-bevel. In that way, you get the aesthetics, performance and durability. The exact amount of toothiness could be dictated by your cutting needs for that particular knife e.g. slice cutting=more teeth, push cutting=less teeth. You could also use the strops to build a nice convex, super polished edge and then use a waterstone to add in the micro bevel so you get a perfect set of micro-serrations, exactly the way you want them while having the durability of the convex architecture.