I think that all this thread is proving is that, like Einstien, we are unable to come up with a unified theory of honing and stropping!

Personally, I spent my first few weeks without a strop at all, just honed my edge to 0.5um on lapping films and had at it. I thought that stropping was for manic obsessives and lunatics, since even the Verhoven paper showed no change in edge with stropping, so I thought I was in the clear...

Now I find out that perhaps I am now an obsessive lunatic myself, as after finally getting a nice strop and learning how to use it -- my edges became MUCH nicer, keener, and gave better shaves.

Go figure.