It’s not that “the stories don’t count”, it’s that “readers feel that the stories don’t count.” Similar, but not the same thing. You can’t really force people to invest in a given story–you either hook them in, or you don’t. We’ve tried anthologies a hundred different ways over the years, and none of them have really performed the way you’d want them to (and never to the same level as, if you just did a series of the popular strip, it would perform on its own.)