Someone's been feeding you a lot of bad information.
Almost all major brand Japanese knives are sharpened to 15*. Shun uses a 16* factory edge, presumably so you'll either send your knives to them to have them sharpened or buy one of their machines. 15* or 16* doesn't make much difference, and its easy to convert a Shun to a more normal 15*.
There's a lot of similarity between the Henckels and Wusthof knives you've mentioned. The major difference is in the handles.
Wusthof changed it's edge a few years ago. All of their knives are now sharpened to what they call a "laser 'V'" which is a straight sided "V" edge with 50/50 profile and 18* edge bevels. I'm not sure what Henckels is doing with its most recent, German efforts.
Wusthofs are excellent knives, if that's the kind of knife you want. But Wusthof is hardly unique. Many other major German, Swiss, and US makers make similar knives of similar quality and sell them for similar prices.
Most skilled cutters have moved from German made western style knives to Japanese made.
There are considerable differences between typical Japanese and western made western style knives. The differences include profile (shape) and alloy. Most Japanese made chef's knives are profiled with a fairly flat, French profile, as opposed to the German profile which has more rocker, more belly and a higher tip. In terms of profile, Shuns are more German than Japanese.
While Japanese made knives tend to be less durable and less well suited for heavy duty work (splitting chicken backs, for instance) they are usually made from with better edge taking and holding properties, are considerably lighter, and more agile -- hence their attraction to good cutters who feel that if they need something heavy duty, they can reach for something besides their "go-to gyuto."
At the end of the day the choice between the German and Japanese types of chef's knives is a matter of taste. It's probably a good idea to understand what makes them different before deciding which you'd prefer.
Although Shuns are still quite popular with American professional chefs they've lost quite a bit of their cachet with people who really know knives. While it's not fair to say that Shun makes a lot of bad knives, but compared to any chef's knife in any of Shun's various lines, you can always find significantly more for the same money somewhere else.
There are some good, reasonably priced knife sharpening services. I suggest looking at the Chef's Knives to Go website, and contacting some of the sharpeners listed there. Also, as things go, the Shun service is reasonably priced and does a fairly good job (but a two week turnaround!). However, any service will quickly cost you more than good sharpening equipment and will deprive you of your knives during the time it takes for them to make their round-trip journey. Considering how quickly knives dull in a professional kitchen, it's a better idea for a pro to learn to be a competent sharpener than to use a service or a machine.
FWIW, a great many services -- including SLT -- use regular, consumer grade, Chef's Choice electric sharpeners. I'm a good sharpener, and use and own all kinds of sharpening tools. I've used CC electrics off and on for years (don't have one now), and consider them to be a good choice for people who can't or won't learn to sharpen, want a high degree of convenience, and are willing to sacrifice some ultimate edge quality for that convenience and CC's ease of use.
I should also say that CKtG and I are entering a commercial relationship, but it has nothing to do with CKtG's stable of professional sharpeners.
Hope this helps,
BDL