Torx kinda requires it be made of a decent alloy, it was developed to handle situations where you really really need torque. Handling more force than anything else was the guiding principle of its design.

Hence you find it in places such as bicycle disc brake rotor mounts.

had to dremel one of my laptop's (stripped) philip head screws to use a flat head screwdriver on it

it worked, somehow

Hex could even be A tier except...

• 10 million metric sizes
• 10 million imperial sizes
• heads get full of rust or dirt
• note that this makes it even harder to tell which damn size they are
• usually mild steel so they strip, especially when it turns out you're using imperial in metric and vice versa

Too many years of wrenching on old equipment has soured me on all except for the good old fashioned hex bolt (S tier) and Robertson (A tier).

Even slotted beats most of these if the steel is decent, scrape out the rust and whack it with an impact screwdriver. I've turned many torx and hex in particular into slotted over the years.

External/male hex aka what big bolts have that you use a wrench for are A tier. I can't really think of a more effective way to transfer large amounts of torque to a bolt or nut. Female hex aka Allens are low C or high D tier. They would rate higher, but they're made in 8.23*10^19 sizes, and the correct one nearly never falls to hand. Add to that the tendency for allen wrenches to be made of low quality extruded hex stock and you've got an excellent recipe for an unpleasant fastening experience.

Yeah, combo is where it's at in terms of field serviceability. I pretty much always have a flathead on hand, but very rarely have a torx but set, Allen key, or Robertson close at hand if I'm in the field.

any screw is a flathead screw if you have a dremel

Posidriv can bugger off too.

When you look at a Robertson, or a JIS or even a Phillips you just use a JIS or Robertson and you’re fine. If it is posidriv, you must use posidriv and you can’t use posidriv with a conventional Robertson/Phillips/JIS. The only way you can tell the difference is by a teeny-tiny little dot on the screwhead or some extra minuscule fins on the driver. If you do t have your glasses, or aren’t aware, you will damage the screw and your driver.

Hex and Torx are OK for certain things where you don’t want an ignorant pleb to gain access. Security Hex and Security Torx are OK where you don’t want an ignorant pleb in denial of their ignorance to gain access.

All those other drivers, Triwing, Pentalobe, variants of Posidriv are just there to push proprietary applications and should not be used by anyone.

Torx is the one true god

Phillips was not designed to cam out. It cams out so people started saying it was designed to cam out.

Phillips was designed to reduce cam out, which it does, compared to slotted.

Why does it look like a clam shell