I personally think the use of pastes for honing at anything other than a very fine polishing stage is a relatively new phenomena. Industrial diamonds like the ones in our diamond paste did not exist in the heyday of the straight razor, in fact being able to get the very fine powders we use in a consistent grit would probably have been impossible. This method hasn't been explored and is looked down upon because it is a completely new area. I've seen the skepticism of the scary sharp method from both razor an woodworking guys, I still see it, even though the method works, and well. I don't think the skepticism here is because of class consciousness but more fear of the new. I mean seriously if some Victorian farmer couldn't afford a chunk of rock where was he going to get diamond dust suspended in fine oil to do the same job.