"74LS244 has uncomfortable pin out. Also, power dissipation is high. It's better to use 74HCMOS buffers, for instance 74HC541. "

NO, if you need drive CMOS is not the solution. For the pinout you can use 74xx541, it does not need to be CMOS . I once used 74S541 to get some real oomph, i seem to recall that a '51 can drive it.

Erik