I recommend adding "Strafe Forward (mod)" and "Strafe Backward (mod)" to the menus for configuring controls, perhaps unbound by default.
I figure if a player prefers hotkeying left and right over the stick+button method, they may prefer to do so for all 4 directions. Also, I suspect that many players don't even know that strafing backwards is possible, as the mod description mentions only "forward or laterally".
Under consideration Quality of Life Settings