The paste for me gives the shave a bit more smoothness, as in more glide, its hard to define but I would say its a tiny tiny bit sharper and a bit more than tiny tiny bit smoother, my honing skills are vastly better than when I started but I cant produce an edge like Bart does. my hht (not that its a true goal for reasons that I wont go into here) is just "o.k" off the stone, with the paste I can pass it a piece of **** everytime.
I have never had a shave as light and close straight off the stone as I have with Barts honing, IMHO he has truly mastered it.