[Rupert]

In my Traveller campaign the player have been putting strength on combat-type characters fairly aggressively.

Now, part of that is their love of space armour and excessive weapon loads. However, even once they got to the point where they had enough ST to handle the load, they put more on. They like the Hit Points, the knockback resistance, and the ability to man-handle NPCs with more normal ST levels.

Even if phasers just leave little piles of dust on the floor the Hit Points are still useful in a Star Trek game - many opponents won't have them, and there's all that environmental damage from control panels frying, from falls, and so on.

Different people and tables will weigh these values differently, but IME players are willing to live with over-priced Striking ST and even also over-priced Lifting ST in order to get at the Hit Point and 'Max Hit Point' components of ST. If anything Hit Points at 2/level are underpriced for my group.