I have a magnesium bar plus flint firestarter and I don't really like it either. I do keep one in my first aid kit as a last ditch fire strarter.

To me, a Swedish fire steel with tinder is superior. I like the spark-lite tabs, cotton and vaseline, wet fire tinder, esbit fuel tabs, and fatwood better than the magnesium. I also carry a "tinder bag" basically a large zip lock that found tinder, like dry bark, goes into.

It's amazing how quickly you can get a fire started if you prepare first. On our last camping trip, everything was pretty wet and one of the dads there didn't think I would be able to get a fre started. A tinder bundle of crumpled up bark with a vaseline cotton ball in the middle with a couple of pieces of fatwood to dry out the kindling and our campfire was born in minutes. I had a huge pile of kindling standing by and three piles of firewood. Despite they heavy damp, we had our fire from mid-afternoon until everyone finally went to bed around midnight.