That makes it sound like the most effective "voting" strategy under FPTP is activism against FPTP.

I do understand strategy and tactics and understand the thinking behind strategic voting (which I think is better characterized as tactical voting, given that it's focused on immediate goals rather than long term ones). I used to be very involved in strategic voting initiatives, but after about 4 decades, it seems to me that it's not actually getting us anywhere.

My personal opinion is that one of the conservative strategies is to lock us into tactical voting as it simplifies the environment in which they operate. It also keeps us moving in their direction because we we're always focused on putting out a fire instead of on "fire prevention." This creates a ratchet mechanism, where they just do whatever they want without regard to the consequences while everyone else is taking the more reasonable approach of trying to minimize the pain of change.