Erik's remark is a good one. It's not as critical to have the bypass cap immediately next to each power pin if you have a power plane, and its not as difficult to have ultra-short connections to Vcc and Gnd if you have the 3-layer sandwich to which I referred earlier.

We used to surface mount through-hole sockets and plug our through-hole parts into them in order to avoid drilling lots of holes. You have to have some mechanical support, though, else you'll pull the pads off the board along with the socket, when you extract a component. They make pretty nice PLCC sockets that are surface-mounted, BTW. Some even provide screw holes. Those mechanical PLCC extractors prevent the potential ripping-off-the-board of the sockets when you extract the IC. That's why I have 'em. Of course, you CAN solder the IC directly to the board.

RE