For through-hole components like 5mm LEDs and PDIP shift registers, I much prefer perfboard. I would only resort to etching for SMT components.
If you are lighting LEDs sequentially, an unlatched shift register only requires 2 control pins. An example part would be 74HC164. And rather than "ShiftOut", you just put the data pin high and toggle the clock pin every time you want an additional LED lit. You can extinguish them sequentially in a similar manner, or, you can use ShiftOut to extinguish them so quickly (within microseconds) the human eye won't be able to tell that they didn't all turn off in the same instant.
Latched shift registers, which require 3 control pins, are a little better for when you want to light arbitrary patterns of LEDs or when you want to drive them to higher power levels (as with a TPIC).