Regarding the wrist strap....Commercially-made wrist straps all have a 1 Megohm resistor or so in series with the ground lead. The resistor was usually hidden in the snap attachment on the strap itself. This is to prevent the worker from being continually connected with a low-resistance path to ground. I recall a technician at Motorola making a temporary ground strap with some solder braid, wire and electrical tape. He got a nasty shock when he brushed against a low current, high voltage power source in the circuit he was working on.
A low resistance ground connection attached to one's body while working on electrical equipment is definitely a bad idea!
Best,
Don