I don't like those vacuum pickup pens either. Much easier to use a tweezers.
The really small tips for soldering irons aren't that easy to use. Unless you're working with very small pins like on a TSSOP (smaller than SOIC) you should stick with the "normal" sizes.
Someday I hope to build a custom "hot plate", about 15cm square, for doing reflow. A toaster oven sounds like a good idea if you're using solder paste/stencils but I'd like to have something that I can reflow on and still be able to manipulate the parts by hand.