A ton of this is practice, and knowing the Stones/Hones and how each reacts with the steel...
If I am refreshing a razor, I honestly have never been one for "Touching up" on pastes, they work fine, but I own some rocks I spent serious $$$ on so I am going to use them :)
Once I take out the stones then I don't want to be messing around with guess work, so I use what I named "Drop Two and Go" this doesn't have to only mean drop two actual grit steps ie: from 12 down to 10 or 8 it could also mean "Drop" to a light slurty on the Escher and then go to clear water..
Basically you drop down to your last two steps and go (Leather and Linen strops not included) say your honing was 1,5,10 Chosera and then a Coticule finisher
Myself I use a Light slurry ----> Clear water finish on my Coticule so dropping Two here would be to a light slurry
Take the last razor I just tweaked up, it was originally done on the Shapton 1,2,4,6,8,16,30 so I dropped to the 16 and then moved to the 30
I can't say if it is right or wrong I just know it works 100% of the time for me, I never have had to backtrack or re-do a razor, this could be the system, or it could be that I only use it on my personal razors, which are babied to death :p
Basically everything I just typed is total BS, and it still comes down to you putting in the time to figure out what works for you, or YMMV heheheh