Good news: this is indeed a Frequently Asked Question, so it's in the right forum section. A quick scan of the existing threads would probably find several other folks asking the same thing. 
Better news: that's the whole point of the Arduino board. It's just a prototyping playground for the ATmega chip. The main chip is in a socket (partly) for just this reason. Program it the way you like, pop it out and make your own support circuitry. There are probably as many variants of the board as there are people asking this same question. And those who don't want to make a separate board just incorporate the actual chip into their main circuit.