Strafe seems useless

[Silverbane]

It's the opposite, IMO. The default movement for A and D is slow and kinda useless. ...
I always rebind A and D with strafe instead and use my mouse to control the camera. That way all WASD keys move my character.

I think I may have a different binding to A and D than what you changed away from.

For example, for me, A moves the character left and changes the character's look-direction (if not targeting anything) to the direction of movement. Q on the other hand moves the character left, just like A does, but has the character looking forward (from the camera perspective).
If I switch to 1st person view, it makes a big difference, but from 3rd person view it doesn't.

I don't recall changing the bindings for A and D, but I may have long ago.