Hi,
There are tons of these:
VQFN (Punched)
VQFN (Sawn)
LQFP
TQFP
SOIC
TSSOP
TSOP
LGA 36
MLF
etc...
I will probably start with a STK500 and PDIP, but are any of these other packages considered "easy to deal with" in terms of finding reasonably priced sockets and ease of inserting/removing them ?
Thanks,
Alan