The importance of breaking in a strop has been talked about numerous times, so I doubt this is news, but recently I did a comparison of the edge stroped on a new latigo strop to one I had been using for a couple of years. The new latigo made from the same batch of latigo broken in the same way as I did the older one almost two years ago (lather and beer bottle). The razor was a Dovo 5/8 SS finished on an asagi was viewed 100x with an old light microscope. What I found was that the newer strop had left some minor but noticeable deformations on the edge.
The razor was rehoned and finished the same way,then stropped again but with the older strop.The older very smooth broken in latigo left no deformations on the blade and visibly improved the edge. Both times, about 50 laps on the strops were made before viewing.