A couple of advice questions really.

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I was taught to free hand sharpen during my joinery apprenticeship in the early 90's. Its certainly a skill worth learning but I recently got a super cheap eclipse style honing guide (made by faithfull) and it does the job fine.
I find the opinion that honing guides are either slow or for noobs pretty annoying.
 
Yes. I've never used one, but if they float your boat there's nothing actually wrong with them. You'll probably find that after a time you'll manage perfectly well without.
 
Just personal opinions:

Richard Kell no2 honing guide. I think it's cheaper than the Veritas (which I admit I've never used), and a pleasure to use. In fact, I'd say (note: still personal opinion) it's as good as it gets. Although in truth, hand sharpening isn't quite as difficult as you'd anticipate.
Bevel for dovetails. DT squares and guides are all fixed angles and not as versatile. Plus it's just more money spent.
Rip cut 13 to 16 tpi tenon for cutting. I prefer 10" for DTs but 12" will do just as well just slightly easier to control the shorter saw. Little DT saws I found only have a slight edge on cutting but I find them a real pain to sharpen and the shorter length usually means the teeth wear just as quickly (depending on the wood you're cutting), so can't really justify the finer teeth.
There's a load of old tenon saws at boot sales, as well, often hardly used and just needing a little clean up and sharpening and setting.
 
If it helps I was a professional chef over a decade and sharpened my knives free hand on water stones before every service got pretty good at (or cocky i guess). Figured i didnt need a guide to sharpen my chisels. Wrong! After basically savaging some poor chisels (at least they were store brand beaters) and my hands I decided that spending 10 bucks on a guide and and actually learning how do it right was worth, at least in my case.
 

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