Thanks. Good rule-of-thumb on the 10 board minimum.
About perf board, I think using "hole only" perf board resulting in the need for point-to-point wiring. While fun my gut is that it is going to be pretty painful and messy. I looked at some of the cheaper protoboards, at Jamesco, for example, which has "rows of three" pads a little like a breadboard. Those may make wiring a little easier, plus they sell a matching case for it. The board is very small though, 2x3 inch or something like that. I guess I can stack them together.
Just typing up this message makes me wonder -- won't it be great if there is a arduino board that has a large prototype area? like merging the BBB with 2 protoshields?
P.K.