The wheel I had seemed to be diamond dust embedded in a very hard rubber like compound.
I've no idea what John's wheel is like, but the stone seemed to do the job OK on mine.
I'm assuming it removed some of the bonding material, more preferentially on the high spots to start with, until the very highest diamond grit particles were undermined and removed. It then went on to expose fresh sharp diamond grit edges on the rest of the wheel.
Initially my cup wheel only cut on about 1/3 of its face, and a small portion opposite, both of which were also becoming glazed. This suggests to me that the cutting face wasn't perfectly flat, and no amount of refacing the backing plate would cure the problem.
After I'd offered up the stone, it seemed to cut more freely, and on all of the wheel's face.
I'm certainly no expert, never having received any formal training, so happy to be corrected by anyone who actually knows what they are doing.
At the end of the day, I figured that it would do the job or not, with little to lose at a small few quid for the stone, and a cheap replacement wheel off ebay is only about £6.50
An article worth reading HERE
Bill