You are certainly correct about some of those cheap power strips. Some of the ground jumpers are just pop rivets internally. GFCI are different however. Neither in a GFCI breaker or CFCI receptacle nor an AFCI device does the ground wire go through any snesors or electronics in the device. The ground wire is ( or should be ) a totally seperate conductor and goes only to the round ground prong on the receptacle and does not even go near the device in a panel board containing a breaker. I have seen a lot of houses wired incorectly where the grounds and neutrals were interconnected in various places. This is a code violation. The building can only have one point where the grounded conductor and the earth conductor ( grounding conductor ) can be connected and that is at the service entrance panel. May larger houses have a sub panel or 2 off of the main panel and people ( and licensed electricians ) connect the ground and neutral together at the sub panels. That raise the ground above the true building ground point. It is also for the power incoming to raise the building above true ground due the the current draw for the incoming utility. Drive a ground rod into an isolated point in a yard and them measure the impedance to the main service entrance ground of the house. Can be an interesting reading in some cases. The purpose of the common ground point is at one point only in a dwelling makes the effect of a bird on a wire. If the whole building is above true ground it is not a problem since the frames of refrigertors and other things is what you could touch. BTW driving and isolated ground rod and bringing that conductor into a house without bonding it to the house main bond point is a code violation.
Jim
