Folk, I believe it is vital that people in the business of woodworking, as well as metal working and paper cutting, have a relationship of trust with those sharpening the cutting tools.
All of the Festool circular saw blades we use today were designed well after CNC grinders became standard. This hardly means an experienced and talented person cannot manually maintain a Festool factory edge on those blades.
The thing is all of those experienced and talented grinders I have known the past 67 years have died, retired or program CNC machines. But remember, since 1950 I have been building custom cabinets in the Burbank and Pasadena region of Los Angeles County, CA. We have a massive concentration of woodworking businesses here. This allows several competitive firms with a bunch of CNC grinders to stay in business.
I am sure that a lot of woodworkers live in smaller communities where there is hardly enough business to justify the cost of CNC grinders. The cost is usually far more than a top of the line CNC nested router of a pressure beam saw. The problem is it takes several different CNC grinders to handle the range of woodworking bits, knives and blades. Some of the circular blade grinders also handle metal cutting blades well. Some of the planer knife grinders also sharpen paper cutter knives.
So I am sure in smaller markets there remain experienced, talented sharpeners. Chances are I have not met them which is hardly the same as thinking they do not exist.
The important thing is to remember that probably everyone owning woodworking tools needs to consider who will do the sharpening. When you try to make woodworking a business the relationship of trust with your sharpening vendor or vendors is absolutely vital. Should your business include mill work then you probably will own at least a couple of moulders, which will require custom-ground knives. That is a sub-specialty so it is common to use one firm for re-sharpening and another for making custom shaper knives.
I believe the best CNC programers are talented at perfoming those operations manually. I like to think at over 60 years ago I was a respected tool and die machinist. I felt that 55 years ago as we started to use NC machining my experience as a machinist gave me an advantage because I knew that to tell the machine to do. My experience has been those of us programing CNC routers and saws need to have experience using saws and routers manually so has to program CNC machines to do those tasks effectively, efficiently and accurately. I am sure the same is true about sharpening. Bottom line is you must be at one with the edge to make it sharp in such a way it stay sharp. If doing the sharpening manually helps a person be at one with the edge, then that is the best method for that person. And, if manual sharpening is cost effective and the turn-around time is acceptable, then by all means use such a service.