We abandoned Phillips and Pozidriv completely and went to Torx for the screws (we were already using hex for bolts). Haven’t really had any issues stripping out screws since.
My daily driver is a 25 year old car that I'm keeping on preventive maintenance. I got it when it was 16 years old and still in pretty good shape since it was barely used and always kept in a warm garage. I've always had pretty old, but well maintained cars in order to minimize the total cost of ownership of them, and kept them running until something too difficult or expensive breaks. I never value them for what I'd get for selling them, because I've never sold a car nor planned to. To me, the car value is always the utility and TCO value of knowing the state of them via preventive maintenance repairs. Usually the failing part not worth fixing is the body, either due to a collision or rust damage.
In addition to always inspecting an used car from underneath, a thing I learned early was to replace all the cash-cow OEM parts with upgraded parts when possible. If not, at least try to have repaired parts made that are improved at the point of failure to be stronger than OEM parts, so that they don't fail the same way again. Factoring the preventive repair into the price of the used car is required in order to be sure to afford owning the car. After that initial preventive repair, it's about checking the parts stay like new, or it becomes very expensive to keep very quickly once something fails after a part's worn out.
Anyhow, look at farm equipment, mine equipment and such to see what vehicles not engineered to fail are constructed like, and I don't mean the extra robustness of the loadbearing parts for the much larger workloads they're designed for.
Prefer makes that have excellent rust protection and models with relatively low stress configuration engines rather than high performance models. The two latter are usually mechanically the same or mostly the same, but the latter of them receive much larger stresses in use and hence tend to fail earlier.
If you intend to modify the car, prefer older ones, because they have lower regulations, but this depends on the legislative area you are in as well. For instance cars with OBD-II are too new for engine upgrades almost anywhere.
I think this is a common misconception about car repair economics. The question is not whether the repair cost is more than the value of the car, the question is whether the repair cost + sale cost is higher than the value of the repaired car. I like keeping cars that I know the history of, even if the car is worth <$2,000 and the repairs >$1000, because it is unlikely that I can get a $3000 car that I have as much confidence in.
When in doubt, drill it out?
I used to use a lot of stainless bolts on machines that went into hostile[1] environments. We used a variety of hex socket bolts, with thread lock compounds and calibrated torgue drivers to put them in and uncalibrated drivers to take them out when they eventually came back for refurb.
We rarely had problems putting them in or taking them out.
I don't know why problems were so rare. I think it being a safety critical industry helped: we bought expensive bolts and tools, and people had some training to use them.
[1] These were used on "Chock Control Interfaces". Here's a video. The box he's pushing buttons on is a chock control interface. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmwEB4DY_jc&t=169s
Here's an explanation of longwall mining and what a chock is (simply, powered roof supports that move forward as the cutting tool removes material): http://undergroundcoal.com.au/fundamentals/07_equipment_1cho...
Going on a tangent here, but are miners not supposed to wear any kind of breathing protection?!
Yeah, that's your problem right there. Removing an old Phillips screw will take more (usually much more) torque than it took to install it, so it'll cam out. The problem is that you're trying to get them out. Don't do that. Phillips screws were never designed for removal that way. They were meant to be used for installation only, and to limit torque on installation. If it's been installed with thread-locker, that should be a sign to you that it's never supposed to be removed. If you want a screw that's meant to be removed after years of service, pick something else; Phillips is not designed for this.
If you're working on something really important, like auto mechanics or the like, consider buying new fasteners when you reach re-assembly. Those old stretched bolts probably need to be freshened up anyway.
The problem is when the tool is telling you the screw is tight enough but it's only halfway in. Or hasn't come out yet. That's where the stripping happens.
If you're getting stuck removing the screw, wait 6 months for the humidity profile to change and the wood to open up.
I'm being slightly factious and I share your pain. The vaseline tip is real though.
This is also why you should only use a hand screwdriver and not a power driven driver bit.
Use a torque driver if you can. And always bracket the bit with your fingers.
If you are straining, something is wrong.