There are two distinct types of strike, namely, a full-blown lighting strike and, more commonly, a static discharge. Fortunately, most of us usually experience the latter, powerful as they may seem. Wise use of WX radar, and MK1 eyeball, avoids most of the former. To save space, I'll refer to them as LS and SD (sorry!).
Aircraft flying through charged cloud (St Elmo's etc) often trigger a SD even though the cloud itself is not producing a lightning storm. The damage is usually restricted to small holes or burn marks on some part of the airframe. This is akin to Slasher's "buggerall amps".
A real LS is millions of volts AND 30,000-200,000 amps and can register its mark on your beloved airplane in a significant way. Checkboard's examples of known lightning fatalities are not alone, as there are many more where, in flying into a fully-developed CB, the question remained as to whether the lightning or the turbulence broke the airframe first. That is why the WX radar has major significance in most company MELs.
Without wishing to tempt fate, I have not suffered a LS in the past 30 years, but I have had many SDs whilst making my best efforts to avoid either. I did, however, watch a Continental 747 take a direct hit, a few years ago, from my perch on the Surrey Downs, overlooking LGW.
There was an active TS/Cb lurking NE of the field and, looking out of my lounge window, I saw the 747 brushing the base of it. A bright bolt came out of the cloud and struck the nose. The aircraft was simultaneously "haloed" in light and a series of forks came off the wingtips and tail, continuing to ground. The aircraft landed back at LGW with serious damage to its nose and was on the ground there for days afterwards. Anyone out there remember this one?
It's the amps that do the damage and, I suspect, most of us only experience Slasher's amperage, thank heavens! There is an old book called "The Flight of Thunderbolts", by BFJ Schonland, FRS., (1950, OUP), which makes fascinating reading for those who are interested (No ISBN, I'm afraid). Although recent storm-chasers and meteorologists have made great inroads into why, when and where storms occur, the physics of lightning in this book remain valid.
There is even an interesting section concerning aviation in Ch3 which mentions tests carried out by NACA (pre-NASA), little if any of which seems dated.
(If anyone knows of an ISBN website, by the way, could you post it here? Thanks!)