Thanks for the responses.

. What happens is that pretty soon you end with a razor that will not hold an edge very long at all, like 4 shaves instead of at least 10.
You mean pasted strop then unpasted strop for 10 shaves then repeat and after a while you only get 4 shaves between pasted strops?

I'm having a hard time seeing what could be going on there, but if you do a couple passes on the pasted strop each time, then it doesn't matter if the edge can make it 'only 4 shaves'.