Photoshop :: *TRUE* Sharpen?

I just started experimenting with a way to get Photoshop to do a TRUE sharpen, where it actually pulls the pixels around blurry edges together, rather than just adding contrast to create the *illusion* of sharpness... but I need ideas. I use sharpening a great deal on photos, but if done too heavily, it always adds that fake "sharpened" look to it, around all the edges... Trouble is, some images NEED that sharpness, and I'm wondering why Adobe still hasn't come up with anything that does a *true* sharpen, after all these years.

So, before I dive more deeply into this, I want to save time (since I don't have much) by seeing if anyone has any ideas as to how to do a couple things.

b - 1.
How would you suggest bringing the blurry pixels in selected regions together?

On my test image, I've had some success using Surface Blur (applied multiple times) believe it or not, but the problem is that on actual photos, it has a knack to only "true-sharpen" the hardest edges, and soften the more subtle ones. Here's an example of what I started testing with:

I also tried Posterize, but this won't work on a large image with more than a few colors in it, because it likes to cut things down to just a few colors (and it looks very messy in photos, because of jagged edges).

b - 2.
Umm, okay, I guess there isn't a second thing... I figured out several good ways of selecting edges; now I just need to find a reliable way to pull blurry edges together along those edges.