Do you mind elaborating on the paper clip method
Depending on the power consumption and drop-out you can safely get away without. My LM7824 was merely hainging on the wires while dropping 2-3V and delivering about 40mA. Once I upgraded to fully Class A biased Diamond buffers (2 pairs of thansistors each buffer, biased at 20mA), my PIMETA is sqeezing ~120mV/24V and even with a heatsink the chip is pretty hot, 50-60C I guess.