I had a few scrap PCBs laying around, so I thought I'd try my hand at removing the ICs via heat gun or torch.
Either I'm doing it wrong, or it's a huge pain in the ass. I tried both the heat gun method for a while, then pulled out a propane torch. I was trying to do it w/o actually catching the PCB on fire... It seemed to take forever for the heat gun to heat up an area enough to melt the solder. And even then, capacitors and resistors and shit fell out, but I only managed to knock one IC out. The torch just wanted to flame the PCB, so I stopped trying pretty quickly (was in the garage, not outdoors).
F all that. I'll buy new ICs any day.