On Tico Vogt's blog he suggests an alternative to stropping that I've never heard of before. I'll let him tell it....
The final step in honing the secondary bevel for my shooting plane irons is to push them into the end grain of a Maple stick charged with 0.5 micron diamond paste and sliding side to side. This ensures that the burr is removed, while not dubbing the edge as stropping might. Shooting end grain puts a premium on having a keen edge.
My initial thought is that this may be detrimental to the edge during the "push in" stage. Interested in others' opinions.