Jimmy, strong point. Thanks!

Nifty, Cheese? San Mai Snack/Sandwich? Best analogy I've heard as of yet! Plus, you elegantly pointed out exactly what I was struggling to express. There are a lot of options to strop, but that's just one piece of the big puzzle of an ultra fine edge. Thanks for that. It helped me get past my hang up on leather.

As to the general consensus that it's either bad technique or leather, I think this is the most logical conclusion. Likely, it's not the leather. I'm still new and in the experimental stage of trying to figure out what works for me. Hence questioning something as trivial as leather strops.

It's a little frustrating when I guess the stars aligned and I got a wicked sharp edge off of the suede and CrOx. My baseline of comparison is the Feather brands double edge safety razor blades. That sharpness is what I'm aiming to get on my straight razor. I came close with that edge that one time. I want more of that level of sharp... which probably means buying some CBN eventually.

FWIW, I'm actually coming at this having started with a straight razor. The burr removal with leather thing was the context of the general conclusion made by people in the knife forum where I asked the same thing. I wasn't trying to suggest it's the same with a hollow grind straight razor. Nor do I agree that's even the best use of strop leather with a knife or otherwise.

I don't make knives either, yet anyways, I just like quantified details. There seems to be a fair bit of hocus pocus in both the straight razor and knife communities. I try to get past that and to the "why" behind why something works.

I think part of the problem could be coming from my 10k Chinese stone. I find it's pretty soft and somewhat inconsistent as a surface. I even spotted a visible black particle that was embedded in the stone. So it's a bit of a challenge to start off with a good edge, which seems to be the most important thing, the more I learn. But I plan on using this stone up first before I get into a Naniwa or something. I'm also thinking "if" I can get a good edge off of this one, then I'm making up in skill what I lack in stone. Plus, the 60x-120x microscope I use helps. I might have to go to the 800x microscope eventually though. N+1, right?