I am liking going with the FT232 or equiv as it lets me leave off one more ISP header, and one less thing to worry about, it either just worksout of the box, or will never work. No software to mess up etc. The whole goal here is to condense, so as new daughter board is a bad idea, I want it a permanent part of the pcb, so I just need to sort this out. Pro boards, small quantity, but I will probably be hand soldering them all, maayyyyybbbbeee ghetto reflow, but not at first, so there is deff a minimum package side I can deal with, and no center pads!
thanks, wish me luck.