I guess I hadn't thought of it like that. Good point.
Let me run this past you, as I suspect it relates to the op. Does it make a difference if the knives we are talking about are either western knives or Japanese knives purposely sharpened to have a toothy edge already? Stropping works really well for me, but I wonder if that's because my BBQ knife roll is full of knives sharpened only as far as 1000x. I guess I'm assuming that even with stropping there is plenty of bite to the edges. Does this make sense? If it does, then I suppose it would work for most kitchen knives because in my limited experience most folks aren't hardcore about their knives and probably have toothy edges without even knowing it. Many folks who give me knives to sharpen ask me to put a "scary sharp" edge on their knives, then they add "Like it was the day I bought it." For them, a knife out of the box with a 500x to 800x grind on the bevel is scary sharp.
Last night, just for fun, I destroyed the edge of a Sam's Club white handle cheapo knife, then I put an edge back on with my 500x. Then I stropped. It was a fun little experiment. The difference after stropping was huge, but still toothy.
With that said, I just like the process of stropping so I'm biased

My ceramic hone is a thing of beauty and for $25 it is a real value!