Burning a bootloader without an ICSP connection

szangvil:
I want to design a bare-minimum board based on the Atmega328. I want to be able to use chips without a bootloader since they are cheaper. I want to save space and not have the ICSP connection on my board at all. I do need the FTDI chip for future updates.

Are you sure that USB/FTDI is smaller than a six-pin ISP header?