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What is the thickness of your knife measured at the spine of the blade ?

The way I see it, the Tormek is all about being precise.

If one is trying to achieve the best speed / quality compromise, and is a deft freehand sharpener, a belt grinder with a fine belt on a low speed setting and a separate leather honing setup will yield the best results. Of course heat must be managed buyt that's how most knives are factory sharpened anyway.

Plus it seems to me that edge leading is somewhat faster than edge-trailing...

I fully agree with the positive impact of the use of a FVB / MB-102 for honing...

Be wary of "toothy" edges they dull very quickly. I too use a ceramic rod occasionally and a steel every use.

... but I'm not sure what you mean here... Edges following the use of a ceramic rod are typically keen yet quite toothy (if by that we mean the opposite of polished). There has been a lot of debate on whether a polished edge dulls faster than a toothier one or not, and I'm not sure this has been proven one way of the other yet. Research by the late Wootz seems to show that edge retention depends mostly on the initial angle, not really on initial sharpness.

Here's the link for those who want to go directly to the video.

Do you always put just a tiny amount of PA-70 honing compound right before you hone a knife ? I found that more efficient than putting a larger amount less frequently.

My personal experience is that honing on the SJ stone results in an invisible wire of ductile metal along the edge. Embedded in the edge if using the SJ edge leading, or a micro-foil if using the SJ edge trailing. All the experiments I tried ended up with BESS score being lower after honing on the leather wheel after SJ.

You should be able to get BESS scores consistently lower than 160 with or without the SJ in your process. After a few hundred knives on the Tormek, a 160 BESS score indicates that the burr is not completely removed, and you may very well see a slight dent in your edge if you examine it closely (see this thread to better see what I'm talking about, also at 320 BESS it is much more extreme.

Also research by the late Wootz seems to show that edge retention is better on lower-angle knife, so the best angle even for boning knives should be "as low as you can get without the edge crumbling". And it depends on the steel and how it was heat-treated.

I'd second what @cbwx34 wrote, and any help you can get in using a ceramic rod at just above the sharpening angle is a good idea. I found that without any indication, I would almost always use the rod at a much higher angle than necessary. You might want to check this thread for more info on this.

Also, for almost all standard kitchen knives, I don't grade the SG-250 stone fine, I just leave it in its natural "in-between" state, before honing on the leather wheel with the standard Tormek compound. That results in around 100-BESS. Too fine an edge would -granted- get a lower BESS but would feel dull faster, especially on soft vegetables. I also tend to hone a *lot*, as my first BESS scores coupled to crude microscopy showed that the burr would not be completely eliminated after just 10 passes. So I tend to do a few first very slow strokes @ around +1dps, then probably around 15 passes without changing the angle. It depends on the steel though.

Still, my feeling is that very fine edges tend to fare better with fresh meat than with tomatoes, for example.

I think in this case your best help is the sharpie: mark the whole edge along the entire length of the blade. Take a stroke, look (use a magnifier if necessary) at where your sharpie is removed.

If only the shoulder of the edge is honed at some point, you might want to start lifting up the handle a bit earlier as it increases the sharpening angle. If it feels akward, you can rotate so the edge is closer to the USB. Conversely, if only the part close to the apex is ground, you can rotate so the edge gets further from the USB.

The MB-102 does not change anything compared to the VUSB, so if you use the same angles and lift/rotate consistently between the grinding and honing phase you should be OK.

There are countless posts on lifting and pivoting, you might want to read some. AFAIC, I lift so it "feels right" (judging by sound/water flow/black gunk flying off/tactile feedback/whatever you're attuned to), and then rotate as necessary to get the edge I want. Sometimes in one direction and then the other, depending on the geometry of the blade. That's the part of the sharpening experience that is hard to capture through jigs settings and calculators... But it's a fundamental one on complex geometries.

You can (and I) actually use the caliper the other way... I just took the photo that way.  (Thought it'd be easier to see...) 

I think I remember I could not do that on the standard VUSB, as the jaws would interfere with the knobs/nooks/crannies. Maybe it is easier to do with the MB-102/FVB... or maybe I have a bad memory.

Yup. And no real mistery here, just standing a bit close to the wheel.

Plus I find that using a vernier caliper to measure to the wheel instead of the frame, one can avoid using the tiny flexible depth bar that protrudes on the back end of the caliper as shown in cbwx's pic.

This is wobbly whereas measuring to the wheel using the leftmost ends of the moveable and fixed jaws feels much more stable. One can feel the end of the jaw lifting up from the wheel with just the tiniest turn of the microadjust nut.

I own two T-8s, I tend to never have this problem with the one that sits higher up. Maybe it happens when I bend over the machine a bit more.

That is exactly it. I found that my diamond plate was rigid enough that I don't need to add the plane iron, bending is minimal.

Rick you're right. I seldom use my stone grader anymore. A diamond plate in the SE-77 works a charm.

I think the SVS-50 could do the job as well, but for just one tool, I'd go the way suggested by @cbwx34.