I think the biggest difference in strops is the feedback. I bought my first Horse Hide strop about 1 1/2 months ago and it "told" me that I was only making contact with the blade on my "return" stoke only 1/3 of the time! I never noticed it before. So I had to adjust my stropping technique and now I'm getting better edges.

Having different strops gives you options. My stropping routine changes a lot. Right now I like 3" horse hide on hollow grinds and 2 1/2" english bridle and steer hide for 1/4 hollows-near wedges smiling blades.

BTW when I first started I was only going to buy 1 strop, 8 months later, i now have 7.