I have used the Atoma 400 for repair work and I think it's awesome for that purpose, as it does not leave as deep of scratches as other diamond plates. Its scratches are more easily removed by a 1k hone. I have no success in assessing my edges with arm hair, but I suspect the reason it worked well off of the 400 was the extreme toothiness of the edge. I think the worsening of the edge after a few 1k strokes was due to the reduction of that toothiness. Now after you did more strokes on the 1k and still did not get improvement, I cannot explain that. Are you normally able to cut arm hair off of the 1k? I've had no difficulty transitioning from the 400 to the 1k and moving up the progression from that.

The usual benefit of stropping is to re-align or break off a burr, but normal honing from 1k to 4k to 8k should yield no burr, so I cannot explain the benefit. I assume the heavily pasted strop was pasted with Cro-Ox? The 1k should have removed any burr from the 400, so I really don't any explanation for what you experienced. The only reason I'm telling you what I don't know is because it does not jibe with my experience doing the same thing.