PLCC Sockets with 0.1 inch through hole leads are nice....but many of the newer parts are in the QFP and TQFP style packages. Sockets for some styles are available but a 100-pin TQFP socket is on the order of a couple hundred of dollars. (Heck I even built an adapter that put one of these little puppies onto an adapter that went into a PLCC socket. See My PLCC Adapter).

ISP parts are WAY better than any need to install a socket. You simply make a circuit board and go ahead and solder down the surface mount microcontroller. Sometimes I find it useful to use a low cost ready made microcontroller board for bringing compute power to a prototype hardware setup. In these cases all one has to build at the prototype level is the extra additional interface circuitry. You can see an example of this concept in my article How To Prototype With High Integration 8051 Type Parts.

Michael Karas