I respectfully disagree that globals are a pain to sharpen. Have had globals as beaters for 10 years, well before I got into nice japanese knives, and their main USP is that the steel is buttery and very easy to sharpen. It's very quick to raise a burr and they get sharp evenly, quickly.
The one thing I would say about globals is that the factory grind can be very tricky. It's a convex grind, but only at the very apex. So if you are starting to sharpen your globals on whetstones, you probably need to pay more attention to the angle, as you may well be sharpening the very end of the convex bit rather than the actual apex, thus making you feel that nothing is happening on this blade. Once you've worked it over a couple of times and have a good apex going, the global cromova steel is buttery and basically minimum effort. I usually run it on a 1k/4k combo stone progression. The only knife that is faster to sharpen is the Victorinox petty.
For reference, my experience with globals is: Had globals for the last 15 years or so. Home cook. They were my "nice knives" before I took the plunge into properly nice knives and grinds. I have the G2, the 18 cm fluted santoku, a paring, a petty and a short slicer. Nowadays they're in a box, and we have the santoku and the paring out, which my girlfriend uses as her daily knives. We keep them out because it's great to have a knife that she can just dump in the sink for a day when needed because we have a small child. Getting them back in shape after a month of abuse is literally not even a proper sharpening session. I've also sharpened a lot of globals for family members, who all prefer them as good enough quality knives. My dad's household got 3, my sister got 2, my brother 4 or so. Every time I visit I go over them. Have never had a problem getting any of them back to sharpness on a simple 1k stone.
