This is a razor after one shave after stropping.This is a good point. It kind of makes me wonder just how much a strop can really do in terms of "repairing" a damaged edge. Looking at the Science of Sharp on stropping, 100 laps does appear to make a difference in terms of smoothing out micro-deformations in a fresh edge. What seems to be lacking from that site is a set of images showing how much damage a shave does to a fresh edge, and how much stropping can "bring it back". I always felt like a shave + a strop still resulted in a noticeable net reduction in overall sharpness, but perhaps my stropping just sucked!
You do the best you can to realign the edge, but some permanent deformation will remain in the edge.
You also have some residual stress that in theory will realign the edge a little.
Old barbers claimed the razor needed to rest. I am not sure how much truth there is to this practice though.