Art & Triangle Strips

I noticed the ShowTool allows you do view the tri-strips for models. Is it safe to assume then that artists should attempt to keep their models triangle stripped as much as possible as a rendering optimization? I suspect this would effect characters the most, since typically characters are mirrored, which also mirrors the face winding, which then causes the exported to be unable to generate tri-strips very efficiently. Are tri strips still enough of a performance deal to fix issues like this?

Thanks
J