I'm hoping to get a 16u2 soon, I was thinking of trying a heat gun to desolder the bad chip and then solder on the new chip by applying some solder to the pins on the board and using the heat gun on the chip because of it being a VQFN, but I'm worried about causing problems for nearby components, like the RX and TX LEDs, and the other various components that are very close, If I can't get that done then I will definitely check out the FTDI chip(s).
Any tips on soldering with a heat gun? or a more efficient way of soldering on the QFN chip? I though about possibly building a reflow oven thing and using that[as a last resort for replacing this chip], but I don't want to melt the plastic on the pin headers.