I tend to use both. The caps and other "jellybeans" get hot air
soldered, while I still use the solder iron "drag" technique to get
the fine pitch ic's down. It's difficult to do 805 ceramic caps with
an iron; they tend to develop cracks if not heated correctly.
BTW, I just got my mono video microscope yesterday. I thought the
200x would be too high, but it actually works pretty well for what I
want to do with it. On my 100pin tqfp's it shows 10 or so pins on
the screen at a time, and actually has a little focal depth. For
$35, it's not too bad; although I'd trade anyone who wanted to swap
their stereo bench microscope anytime.
http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BMC2150-PB-Dal