I used to think of House of Knives as sort of a "it can do one extra damage and maybe flatline in a clutch situation, but scoring an entire 3/1 for that is a li'l expensive". What I was missing was that using all three counters (on separate runs; it's a once per run ability) adds up to a reverse Diesel. In other words, House of Knives is a strong econ card. Now, the synthetis of those two perspectives means: use the tokens selectively but don't hoard 'em.
Rules note: Runners, don't quickly grab my cards after the last ice! I might need to send some knives atcha!
The last chance to use House of Knives is after the last ice, after deciding whether or not to jack out, but before accessing cards. And that goes for Hokusai Grid also.