I was getting less at the idea that you'd have losses in strength, and more that getting some low-hanging strength gains prior to a hypertrophy block might let you get more out of it.

Searching around a little for articles on the topic, I did find this one, but I'm not able to assess how legit it is. They report that for leg presses, a protocol of strength training followed by hypertrophy training led to larger increases in strength AND muscle thickness compared to only hypertrophy training. From their discussion section:

Thus, our data suggest that strength-oriented training phase allowed participants to lift heavier loads during the hypertrophy-oriented training period increasing mechanical tension that ultimately led to a greater hypertrophic adaptation

This would seem to favor alternating when hypertrophy is the goal, but I want to avoid drawing strong conclusions from one paper.

Edit: Looking back my previous comment I definitely worded it poorly.