Honestly it's more of a trendy thing IMO than anything else.
In my industry (auto repair/mod/inspection) the nobody is really using a driver of any sort long enough to think...gee these are so much more comfortable.
Let's face it in my industry if you've got a bunch of fasteners you're reaching for an electric driver/bit combo.
If working around oil or anything wet and your hand is soaked and or the handle.. the soft grip would have it's place. But...BUT...when is that happening? I mean really!!!
Like let's change the oil in a 99 Super Duty with a 7.3 power stroke Diesel while 16 quarts of oil is splashing around while I stick my hand under it to see how warm the oil is....oh and at the very same time taking apart the aftermarket Warn hubs with six hex bolts.
But hey.....
To each their own.
I hate any of the driver type things and I really like the handle and grip on my DeWalt 887 driver with a proper bit.
One more rant...
Whoever invented Philips needs beat with a wet noodle by the person who invented torx.
Just sayin
The Phillips screwdriver was invented for power screwdrivers, for production lines, before there were decent torque limitation devices.
The driver head would pop out of the fastener before tearing the fastener head off.
Once torque limiters were designed, the Phillips drive was no longer necessary, but the fasteners were already being used widely.
Ford tried to switch to Robertson Square Drive, but Robertson wouldn’t license the design to Ford, due to a negative lawsuit issue over licensing rights previously, and Ford didn’t want to have to rely on Foreign Canadian made screw supplies.
Pozidriv screws and driver were invented to fix the issue with Phillips, snd does work way better, but the drivers for Pozidriv and Phillips are not really compatible, and are much more likely to cam out the reverse fastener. By the time Pozidriv was introduced, the Phillips faster was too common in the US, so nobody in the US wanted to adopt Pozidriv. In Europe, Phillips wasn’t as common, so Pozidriv became the defacto standard for crosshead screwdrivers in Europe(this is what the crosshead screws on Ikea furniture are).
In Japan, the crosshead design was modified,(maybe to avoid patents, maybe just because the Japanese realized the Phillips design sucked) and the Japanese use something called JIS, which is common on Japanese manufactured goods, and on electronics.
JIS drivers will usually turn phillips screws.
Phillips screwdrivers will cam out JIS screws.
There are some other crosshead designs as well.
The standards for crosshead screwdrivers were changed relatively recently, and the new drivers should have less issues turning Phillips/JIS/etc. with the same drivers, at least if you purchase drivers made to the newer standards.
There are still a crapload of the older drivers around.
For phillips, you can also buy ACR(ribbed) Phillips bits that tend not to cam out, as well as diamond and carbide grit bits that are also not designed to cam out.
