Interesting. I've never used those, so I don't know how sharp they can get a blade. I don't strop many of my knives anymore, but IIRC, light pressure and good angle control are key. I've heard people supposedly knowledgable in sharpening say angle is not as importent when stropping. One fellow posted a video praising the virtues of stropping, and naming less critical angle control as one of them, then proceded to use about a 20 degree angle going toward him and about 60 going away, where he couldn't see the angle. Needless to say, I think that is bunk.
If you press to hard, the leather will wrap around the edge and sort of dull it. If you use the wrong angle, you may not even hit the edge. If those rods are white, and anything like some other fine white rods I've used, stropping should work. An old trick to find the angle is to GENTLY push the blade forward, starting at a very low angle. Raise the spine and increase the angle slowly while moving forward. When the blade just bites into the leather, thats the angle to use. Don't do this every time, just once on the knife to see where the edge is.
Read the label of the paste carefully to see if there is any abrasive in it. If not, you may just have strop conditioning paste, sort of a moisturizer for the leather. Plain leather has little effect on a blade that is not well past hair shaving before starting.
You may just need more work on the sticks. If they are anything like the small hand held ceramic sticks I've used in the past, you should be able to get hair shaving edges without a strop. Unless the edge angle is less than the angle the sticks/rods are set to, you'll need a coarse stone to reduce the edge angle. The sticks I've used would take weeks to rebevel a blade.
