If you're not sure about your pH, the first thing to do is test your soil, not amend it. Strawberries aren't blueberries, they don't need a really acid soil. You could be way over-amending with no way to know this.

It is a Parthens red.

This year, I planted in large black plastic containers with a 50%/50% mix of MG potting soil and compost. They thrived in that. I added organic matter periodically (coffee grinds, coco bean mulch, etc.) and fertilized once a month. I also interplanted with Lysmachia ('Creeping Jenny' & 'Jungle Green') to cover the black pots and act as a natural mulch. Seemed to help retain the water quite a bit.

In my opinion, save your money. Skip the bagged potting soil (it's good for containers, but not much use in actual dirt), the bagged topsoil (there's no telling what's in it -- probably what you have already anyway), the peat moss (it doesn't add useful organic matter and is environmentally controversial), and the gypsum (it's good for sodic clay, but we don't have sodic clay). Instead, concentrate on adding organic matter. LeafGro is good. Dehydrated manure is also good -- if it smells, leave the bag open for a few days, and the smell will go away. Put the old mulch and leaves back on. And add more mulch! Preferably something that breaks down easily, like leaves and grass clippings, but bagged shredded hardwood is better than nothing. As Brent says, if you use mulch, you have to do a whole lot less weeding and watering, plus it improves the soil as it breaks down. I do understand your point about flower beds vs. mulch beds, but the problem isn't the mulch, it's the fact that some people apparently would rather look at a nice tidy bed of mulch than an untidy, colorful bed of flowers :-).