Wow. This amazes me. This post got rude and nasty and I wasn't even a part of it.
I have spent a lot of my life trying to do things "on the cheap". I have always reused oil pump pickups, but they also have soaked in gasoline or lacquer thinner. I tap the screen end with a small hammer and keep doing it until nothing falls out. I often run the pickup with an oil pump with a drill, with the pickup in a bucket of solvent. I run the drill both ways to pull AND push solvent through it. NO, I have never cut one open. Maybe I have been lucky or the pickup tubes were not too dirty.
I've had cam failures that left metal bits in the pump rotors but the crank bearings looked nearly perfect. My 493 is one example. I am NOT condoning being careless. A pretzel twisted oil pump drive ? You'd have to have something really solid to bind up the pump. Small bits of cork? I can't imagine that cork wouldn't compress and pass through. Dried and cracked valve stem seals? Maybe, but it also seems that anything small enough to get past the screen wouldn't bind the pump.
Keep in mind here, I am NOT trying to contradict anyones opinions. I'm just stating what I have seen.