I think static straps are important. I used to work at a fabless semiconductor company, Aeluros (bought by Broadcom) in 2002-2007, and one of our analog design

I think static straps are important. I used to work at a fabless semiconductor company, Aeluros (bought by Broadcom) in 2002-2007, and one of our analog designers, Arnold Feldman, Ph.D., who designed anti-static circuitry for a large graphics card mfr, religiously wore anti-static straps when he was in the lab. In fact, all the designers (they were all Ph.D.s from either Stanford or Cal) wore straps in the lab. I asked him once why he wore a strap because until that company I had been haphazard in my use of a strap when I worked on the guts of PCs. He said that even though I might not have caused a failure, the chip might be degraded. I now wear a strap every time I work with bare circuit boards.