Ever tried desoldering an SMD?  Did it work?  I tried once.  The heatgun that I used melted many of the plastic parts on the board, but I did get the chip replaced.  It was dangerous, and I wouldn't make a habit of such operations.  After working with my USB boards, I recently decided to try using some ChipQuik to pull the chip from a failed board.

ChipQuik is wild stuff.  It comes with flux and some alloy.  You use it by melting the alloy onto the pins.  When it mixes with the solder, it lowers the melting point of the solder-making it possible to heat all the pins and remove the chip without damaging the board.  This stuff could have saved me $100 recently, when I destroyed a stepper driver board trying to replace a chip.

When I tried the ChipQuik on my own 32 pin chip, I expected mediocre results.  In fact, it was really surprising how well the stuff worked.  After I removed the chip, it took only a few seconds with solder wick to clean the pins.  None of the pins were damaged, and the chip is ready to be installed in another failed attempt at board design.