@KingGhidora glad you are enjoying your SolStrips. We have included nylon washers and mounting screws with our SolStix strip-and-heatsink combinations since we introduced SolStix in February. None of the dozens of customers who have used SolStix to create their light systems have reported a single issue such as the one you and Fisch has experienced.
Those issues have only been reported by those who chose to purchase just the SolStrips alone and improvise their mounting and heatsinking with their own designs.
We continue to use steel screws - of the proper size, and with a protective nylon washer - to mount SolStrips for our custom projects, and without a single incident of strip failure.
We come from, and are committed to support, the LED DIY community at SolStrips. But the DIY ethic includes taking responsibility for learning and employing best practices and techniques in project design and fabrication. It’s about working within the limits and specifications of your materials to create something unique, not crabbing about how duct tape isn’t as strong as a welded joint.
Handled with any amount of care, SolStrips have proven to be virtually failure-proof. Metal screws won’t damage the strips. Oversized steel machine screws jammed through the strips’ mounting holes, with hard steel lock-nuts torqued down on them as if part of a backyard swing-set, will damage them for sure. As will drilling through them, cutting them with a Sawzall, or nailing them to a board, fwiw.