With test kits you get what you pay for. Your 5 bottle kit was probaby about $15 and your test strips were between $7 and $20 for a tube, depending on which ones you got. Consider how much your pool cost and then think if spending around $60 on a GOOD testkit that will accurately and precisely test the water parameters you need in the exact same way that professional pool maintenance people do is worth the money...or better yes, ask ANYONE who has bought such a kit!
The answer is going to be yes.
In the old days of computers there was a term, GIGO. I stood for "Garbage In, Garbage Out". This meant that if you had bad data input your results would be bad. With a pool your input data are your test results. If you cannot believe them or they do not have proper resolution for balancing water then you cannot balance your pool.
Strips do not have enough resolution for balancing water, they cannot test CH but only test TH which si not a valid test for pool water, and are time dependent for a proper read.
Cheap test kits only test total chlorine (yellow color comparator for chlorine test) and do not include CH or CYA tests, which are necessary for proper pool maintenance.