testing strips questions

been type2 for about 7 years now, had been managing it "well enough" with metformin, enough that I stopped paying attention to it, and finally came back with an a1c of 9.0. So now I'm trying to recalibrate everything, testing a lot, and have burned through my insurance's allotment of test strips. I got them to override once, but I'm sure that I won't be able to do that many more times.

1. Has anyone tried discount/generic test strips (I'm looking at some from a company called "unistrip"), and how satisfied were you?

2. Is there any argument/action/whatever that will work on insurance companies to allow for periods of more frequent testing?

Thanks!