I think static is a personal thing, I used to quite happily handle any chip, including CMOS with no adverse effects what soever but we nad a work experience lad in my dept for a couple of days and I thought a good job to give him was to burn a load of eproms that were needed urgently. But , despite standing on an anti-static mat and having both wrists manacled hes was death to any chip he touched.
I was taught that once a chip was soldered into a properly designed circuit then small amounts of static should not be harmful, obviously if you're going to attack it with a Wimshurst machine then that might be a different matter.
Like Milo I've vacced out many Machines with no detrimental effects.