I agree. It's good to remember that the 180+ figure was taken, as Dr. Daniels has repeatedly noted, from elite athletes in Olympic competition. It says nothing, for example, about their stride rate during easy-pace running, or threshold running. Both of those stride rates are a little lower. (Daniels has provided these figures, too, on other threads.)
I, too, have stronger, heavier legs than most runners. I'm built like a distance runner above the waist--the classic skinny-melink, as we used to say; all ribs, no pecs--and a soccer player below the waist. At 5K race pace, my stride rate has always seemed a little slower and my stride length (effortlessly) a little longer than the runners around me.
Moving up from the mid 160s to 170 felt extremely natural to me, but increasing stride rate beyond that has been a stretch. And in 5K races, I still tend to overextend. The best thing about working on stride rate is simply bringing the issue into consciousness, as a variable that one can monitor. "Keep stride rate up!" isn't a bad slogan to keep muttering in the late stages of a race, particuarly a longer race like a half marathon. I've found it a help.
There's another paradox that you've hinted at: even as you're focusing on shortening stride and increasing stride rate, it's important to remember that the only way to get faster as a runner is to INCREASE stride length and stride rate. This is absolutely basic: the guy with the fastest race pace is the guy whose stride rate multiplied by stride length is the highest number. Duh! Yet it's easy to forget this fact amid all the talk about shortening up one's stride and increasing cadence. It's just as important to find some time each week to extend one's stride--working the kick, as it were. Those of us who have been overstriders may even have an advantage when we fall back into our old habits, since we have many years of big powerful (albeit too-long) strides behind us--unlike the patty-foot fast-cadence guys we're trying to copy these days.....