What type of whetstones are you using for sharpening stainless steel knives

There are three core essentials:

• Chef's knife
  • 8" or 10" depending on your preferences
• Paring knife
  • 3" or 4" depending on your preferences
• Bread knife
  • As long as possible, 12"+
  • Feel free to go cheap here, it's serrated and thus largely unsharpenable

You may want to check out Alton Brown's book, Alton Brown's Gear For Your Kitchen. He spends a chapter on knives and where to go past the essentials. He also suggests which ones are worth spending money on and which should be throwaways.

Well your chef's knife should constitute about 90% of your usage I'd say. It should be used for slicing, dicing just about anything. Your paring knife is actually the 3-4" one you describe. Paring knives are typically used for delicate tasks like, coring apples, peeling, and some people use it for mincing garlic because it's so small.

I've never seen a 2" serrated knife before, so I'm not sure what I'd use that for if anything. If you're using it because it seems to do a better job on the vegetables, then that's a sign that your chef's knife is dull. I have seen tomatoes sliced with a 6" serrated utility knife due to their tenderness. However, you generally don't want to use a serrated knife on an onion, this will cause a lot of the gas to be released that makes you cry.