I'd have to agree that Bearstrider is unplayable as a straight-forward deploy. If you don't have something to immediately trigger the +3 Strength, it's a hit to your own tempo.

Because of this, it's something I only include in Enrage decks (or a Viking deck if I had the cards for it) where I view it as a 5-cost 6/4 (4 +1 for Enrage) that can balloon out of control if you're running creature-ramp (Spoils of War, Blood Rage, Call to Arms, Sound the Charge, etc.). A common win-condition for me was playing a 3/7 Tamed Mammoth (thanks to Call to Arms) followed by a 6/6 Bearstrider that bumped my Mammoth to a 4/7.

This would hit the board early enough that other forms of control weren't quite ready to remove them, so I'd get enough face damage that it was only a matter of time before they keeled over.

You could argue that all of the Blitz alternatives are better/faster/stronger/harder. . . wait. . . I mean more immediately useful, and to a certain extent I'd agree. It just seems like for an archetype named "Beefy War", there's a distinct lack of beefening effects beyond Out Of Its Misery!