I, too, suffered through this ordeal in the name of self-repair. The worst of it was having to, every now and then, file a slot into a tiny screw I'd stripped (#%!*) so I could continue with a flathead screwdriver.
Genuine Wiha phillips head screwdrivers are magic at not stripping screws. So much so that many cheap no-name sets will imitate the red knob and dark grey finish to piggyback on that.
