I found it easier to grab the end of the adhesive strip sideways with narrow tweezers, "twirl " the tweezers to wrap the strip around them a few times, then gently pull the strip with the tweezers.

William Olstad's tip about cleaning the screws with a needle and a bit of poster putty worked well for me. There was a lot of crud in there! The opening is shallow, so it's easy to see how the screwdriver wouldn't catch with even a bit of grit in the way, No problem getting the pentalobe screws out with the ifixit screwdriver.