Ugh, even the square heads (Robertson? Cool new factoid :)) suck when the metal is poor. IKEA apparantly makes theirs out of chrome-dipped gelatin now.
Another little fact about Robertsons- don’t use them anywhere you’ll want to paint. You’ll never get the paint out of them in the event you ever want to remove it. The pointed tip of a Phillips will dig in and allow you to remove the screw, but the blunt end of a Robertson drive will never sink into the paint-filled well.
Ya’ll seem to have missed (probably because I didn’t do into enough detail) a key point of my rant. Phillips heads are okay for wood screws or sheetmetal screws. These are disposable.
However, when a phillips head is used on a machine screw used to attach a plastic part (with a brass insert) to an aluminum part, they suck!. All of these things expand at different rates and it’s possible that the screw requires more torque to remove than it did to insert. Couple that with a tight spot where you can’t put any axial force on the tool, it’s going to cam out. This happened to me with a brand new (not worn) #2 phillips (the correct size) bit inserted in a 1/4" socket attached to a 1/4" drive ratchet. I had enough space to use one fingertip against the head of the ratchet to apply axial force. Couple that with screw material that has the hardness of salt water taffy, and it’s break out the hacksaw blade.
Put a good strain on the screw (with a properly sized Phillips screwdriver) in the CCW (loosening) direction and pop the end of the handle with a hammer as if you are trying to drive the screwdriver like a nail into the screw. Same principle as the impact screwdriver mentioned above. The torque of twisting the screw, coupled with the impact of the hammer blow, will often help loosen stubborn screws. Of course if you strip the screw head out in the process of determining that it is stubborn enough to warrant a hammer blow, you’re still fucked.
Ohhh, difficult. Probably depends on the actual items selected. In general I’d say that B&Q is better value for money than Homebase, since the stuff seems to be a bit cheaper, but they can be just as bad as each other quality-wise. Buy from ScrewFix Direct instead, if you are organised enough.
Surely in this case you are fucked no matter what head the cheap-ass got-molester who manufactured the item puts on the screw?
Heh. You should try the screws that come in the packet with gate handles from B&Q (I believe now the UK branch of Home Depot) or gate latches from Homebase. These screws appear identical, and are probably made in the same factory. The material is some sort of cheese the colour of metal. The slots are often off-centre, in some cases only reach part-way from edge to edge, and vary in depth from about a micron in some cases to half the length of the screw in others. Screw covered in some sort of black material, like watercolour paint but less durable. They cam out if you try to screw them into anything harder than warm butter as the slot immediately assumes the form of a crater, assuming the driver doesn’t slip out first due to the off-centre slot. Lovely.
Recommend Snap-On; the tip is so to-specs that it will hold the screw, great for placing screws in spots you can’t reach with your hands.
Try a Philips Screwdriver! Milk of Magnesia & vodka! 
Most cheap screws are made in China, the softness of the metal (contaminated steel) will assure that striping the heads will happen. Unfortunately, high-quality srews are difficult to obtain-as the cheaper vendors have drive the good ones out of business.
There is nothing wrong with Phillips heads, except for people who don’t understand how the torque settings work on cordless drills/drivers. They are there for a reason. If you want to back out a screw, set the lowest torque that will “hammer” the screw and let the tool do the work.
People just jam the bit into the screw and slam the trigger, strip out guaranteed. Also, many people try to use a #2 bit when it is actually a #3. Most homeowner types have never heard of a #3 Phillips bit. (Or even a #1 for small screw heads)
I vehemently disagree with the OP re Phillips, although I do agree about square heads or torx.
A tip: Deckmate brand deck screws, which everybody buys from the big boxes, and include the blue bit in the box, drive better with a #2 square head bit
Phillips head deck screws?!? Good lord, Americans truly are a lost cause.
I vehemently disagree with this, and agree with the OP.
Yes there is something wrong with Phillips head screws. BY DESIGN, they cam out when the torque applied is at a maximum. While camming out has problems of its own (with soft metal & wrongly used tips), that’s not the big issue. The major flaw is that if you have a screw tightened to the maximum, if anything at all happens while the screw is in there to make it tighter it is therefore impossible to unscrew it. I just had a similar problem to the OP’s, when I tried to remove the mount for my broken-off rear-view mirror.
We no longer need to worry about automated machines that don’t know how much torque to apply; Phillips-head screws need to go away.
Phillips screws, annoying to use but, a tasty snack!
CMC-fnord!
Thank you. That’s the point I’m trying to make. Phillips heads screws are great for screwing two pieces of wood together. I used them all the time for that and I love them.
But, when they’re used to assemble components that may have to be disassembled for maintenance or repair, you can do everything exactly right and they still fail.
How about this for screwy corporate logic. I work at an appliance manufacturer. We ship a little kit of screws, clamps, etc. inside the units that you need for installation. For a time, there was a mix of torx and phillips. Very frustrating to switch back and forth during installation. So we decide to starndardize. Engineers do testing and determine that torx are MUCH better. We choose phillips instead because otherwise customers will complain that they had to make a special trip to buy a torx bit.