The problem with the issue of sharpness is to define what one means when one talks about sharpness, especially in a digital age. If you're shooting a book and you want to be able to clearly read the small text in the shot, then you need to have it be really sharp. But if you're shooting a model, and you want the best look to the skin, you might not want it ultra sharp. But in that same shot of the model, you might want the eyes to be ultra sharp since they are the window's into the soul. Sometimes people look a different photos and they say the photo is sharp when maybe they are drawn to the eyes of the photo and they are sharp, so they call the image sharp. But is it. Here is a sample photo to judge:
Now is it a sharp shot or a soft shot? The one of the right is out of the camera. The one on the left is with eyes sharpened slightly and face softened slightly. Which shot of the face do you prefer? Notice that the right shot is sharp enough to see the pores of the skin. Do we really want to see the pores of the skin in a glamour shot. The left photo uses just enough softening and a bit of healing brush to tone down those sharp pores.
Now here is an example of three types of sharpening:
As you can see, each shot is too sharp, but each photo has different qualities of sharpness that some may like. Check out the eyes in each shot. What I normally do is sharpen the eyes selectively and then soften the face. I would simply pick the best eyes of the three samples, and then do a bit softening to the face as was done in the first example above.
cheers,
roger