I see you have popcorn...
I am not hating the stainless Surge. Might have to get me one to keep my BO company.
BO is only messy for a few days. A lot of it can be taken care of by cleaning the tool before using. BO offers more grip and is less slippy when wet or oily.Cleaning it I just gave mine a good WD-40 bath and wipe down.As for the tekno voodoo stuff, beats me.
How messy is the black oxide?
In case you haven't seen it yet. http://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,48706.msg841761.html#msg841761
The screw should be on the awl (scissors / blade exchanger) side.Heat the post with a bic lighter briefly and using a pin or similar scrap out the old loctite.I use the blue (medium) 243 loctite as I regularly change parts out, the red (hard) 263 loctite requires heat to loosen, most use red.You will want 2 x T10H bits.If you run into any trouble, holler.
I wouldn't know for the states sorry. Most hardware stores should have a threadlocker, it doesn't have to be the loctite brand.