The stronger I get (4k now), the more I am convinced that the best way to improve, at least until dan level, is by improving your reading.

Doing other stuff might be more fun, and it might get you a little stronger, but it kinda misses the point of what go is all about. And it gives you a false confidence of thinking you know what you're doing. This held me back for a long time.

Any strategic considerations you need you will very quickly learn by getting a couple of your games reviewed by stronger players.

I routinely win games against stronger tactical fighters by out maneuvering them strategically. That pretty much describes every game I play anymore on KGS. Don't underestimate the power of strategy. You can play really passively locally and still win a game if you manage to direct your opponent in useful ways (yeah, you lost a group, but you built up a huge wall in the process). To be a really strong player you need both skills, but I definitely think it's possible to get to the high SDKs, probably the low dans, with little to no reading ability whatsoever, just playing solidly, with no defects, good shape, and a strong sense of strategic vision. Without defects there isn't any aji for your opponent to really exploit, and you can probably entice them to attack groups if you do leave defects behind, so you can sort of direct your opponent without his necessarily realizing.

Most players seem to go the other way (get strong tactically and pick up strategy as you need). But certainly at DDK you can study whatever pleases you and get stronger.

I routinely win games against stronger tactical fighters by out maneuvering them strategically. That pretty much describes every game I play anymore on KGS. Don't underestimate the power of strategy. You can play really passively locally and still win a game if you manage to direct your opponent in useful ways (yeah, you lost a group, but you built up a huge wall in the process). To be a really strong player you need both skills, but I definitely think it's possible to get to the high SDKs, probably the low dans, with little to no reading ability whatsoever, just playing solidly, with no defects, good shape, and a strong sense of strategic vision. Without defects there isn't any aji for your opponent to really exploit, and you can probably entice them to attack groups if you do leave defects behind, so you can sort of direct your opponent without his necessarily realizing.

Most players seem to go the other way (get strong tactically and pick up strategy as you need). But certainly at DDK you can study whatever pleases you and get stronger.

The biggest issue with playing that way is it is much harder to improve later, because you have not strengthened your reading ability....I think that the notion that strategic and tactical considerations are separate is really not accurate, especially as you get stronger. Strategy doesn't matter if you can't read. Reading actually develops your judgement, not the other way around.

I don't agree. I don't mean to offer an opinion about which is the best way to improve, but if you can study to improve your reading when you're starting out, why can't you study to improve your reading after you've been studying strategy for awhile? Surely tsumego help no matter how strong you are.

I will say the second part makes sense--learning to read lets you judge positions better, because you can see potential followups (i.e: this position isn't good because the invasions at a,b,c...work. But then isn't it a two way street? Can't you be great at calculating variations, but bad at assessing the result?

I routinely win games against stronger tactical fighters by out maneuvering them strategically. That pretty much describes every game I play anymore on KGS. Don't underestimate the power of strategy. You can play really passively locally and still win a game if you manage to direct your opponent in useful ways (yeah, you lost a group, but you built up a huge wall in the process). To be a really strong player you need both skills, but I definitely think it's possible to get to the high SDKs, probably the low dans, with little to no reading ability whatsoever, just playing solidly, with no defects, good shape, and a strong sense of strategic vision. Without defects there isn't any aji for your opponent to really exploit, and you can probably entice them to attack groups if you do leave defects behind, so you can sort of direct your opponent without his necessarily realizing.

Most players seem to go the other way (get strong tactically and pick up strategy as you need). But certainly at DDK you can study whatever pleases you and get stronger.

Up until around 5k, maybe. Further than that, I think reading becomes much more vital.

...
by strategy I mostly mean attack and defense: handling weak groups, attacking, forming and recognizing sector lines, knowing when to run and when to die, that sort of thing. ...

Aside from the sector line part, which I don't use myself, I think that all of the items that you mention are covered by good tactical ability.

For example, "knowing when to run and when to die" can be achieved by understanding the outcome of the local situation. When you see the outcome by reading, you can know whether it's a good decision to go down that route.

Then what would you consider strategy to actually be?

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory" (Sun Tzu)

I think that what people commonly refer to as strategy is theory that they read in books, which they'll use as heuristics to deal with situations. Go proverbs might be an example of this.

I think that you can get a lot of these heuristics and go proverbs under your belt, and it may help some of your decisions - but I don't think it's a good substitute for reading.

I think that if you focus only on reading, you will not need the heuristics and go proverbs you read in books - you will learn these things yourself from experience.

I think it's important to make this decision, because it is easy to cut back on reading and think, "well, I'll just apply this heuristic". Somebody with sufficient reading will then find out where the heuristic goes wrong and beat you.

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory" (Sun Tzu)

I firmly believe that I spent too much time reading strategy books while reaching my current level, and didn't do nearly enough life and death. It's been a significant barrier to further improvement.

No, I think Numsigil's distinction is better. "When to run and when to die" (furikawari, I presume he means) is definitely strategy. Tactics are the ability to make the outcome of a given situation work in a direction you choose, Strategy is deciding what direction you want the game to move in, and therefore which tactics will serve that purpose best. Lee Changho's quote where he says the hard thing about Go is not reading 100 moves ahead for three different candidate moves, the hard part is deciding which of those three is the best, is pretty much the very definition of tactics vs. strategy.

More concretely: Tactical knowledge shows you that a two-space extension which is pincered on both sides may be attacked from above, either side, or with a tesuji from underneath. Strategy is figuring out which of those ways to attack is the one you actually would prefer to do.

Whether that's what "most people mean" could be another story (your thought might actually be what quantumf means,) but as far as the words themselves go, that's what they mean. There are very few books that actually talk about strategy in a concrete fashion (in English, at least) AFAIK - parts of Attack and Defense, I guess The Direction of Play... other than that, really good game commentaries are the only sources I see.

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Tactically, both a and b are possible. The difference is strategic.