I've had those wooden knife blocks-- couldnt get all my chef's /santoku knives in.
And then I upgraded to one of those wooden blocks with the black rod inserts-- I could put more variety of knives in, but still couldn't put that many, and the rods would break within the block and slowly you couldn't fit even the knives you had in there before back in. They just kept sticking out higher and higher even though it was quite deep. Eventually the side split open.
And now, this Bodum knife block. At last! So like the one I mention above (I think I had gotten mine at superstore), I could put a great variety in this one. AND, since the outside isn't wooden and rigid, when you stick a knife in, the slide poofs out a very little bit. You can't really see it, but that flexibility lets you put knives in and not run into limitations on how many you can put into the block due to space left between the rods! You are limited by space of all your handles and being able to grasp the right knife, but that's it!
We've purchased 2 of these knife blocks into which we've put 4 chefs/santoku knives, 2 bread knives, a cleaver (which I never managed to put in a knife block before), a tomato knife, 3 paring knives and a small santoku! I also a pair of kitchen shears and I have a rod knife sharpener in there. The latter sticks up (too long) but everything else fits right in.
I've only had these a couple weeks but I love them already. I read on some other reviews that the plastic rods come out and can be washed in the dishwasher. I didn't try that yet, but BONUS!
Oh! and the red color is quite nice. I would have prefered something more subtle but so far they only come in electric colors and black.
NEGATIVES:
The knives aren't offered to you at an angle like other knife blocks, but this is the case with most of these plastic rod insert type blocks, so I've gotten used to this already.
Oh! and if you have any of those knives with holes in the blade, those don't slide nicely in. I put my small santoku (with holes) into the block anyway, but putting it in wasn't like slicing butter (unlike all the others).