It didn't seem like a sore to me either, but in fact, the thing that was actually causing my throat pain was much further down than I thought; they had to stick a scope down my throat to get a look at them.

They suck. On the upside, they're easy to get rid of.

On the other hand, as you point out above, there are variations on strep going around pretty much everywhere these days. We're in the grip of a massive outbreak in my schoo; almost 30% of the people in the building have had it since January.