I have spent a fair amount of time over the past 15 years both removing and installing different IC and discrete bits within hardware lab environments. I am not an expert solderer, and I would not want to work in a production environment, but I consider myself an exceptional solderer in the everyday (adverse) conditions you might find in a typical HW Engineering environment.

I don't know that it'll be all that useful, but I'll share some of what I've learned.

The key goals in an engineering environment are:

1.) You don't damage boards. No lifted pads, no torn barrels, etc. Ever. Unless you mean to (and sometimes you do, to make salvaging a pristine part easier.)

2.) You don't damage components while removing them unless you mean to (and you often will, to protect the board.)

3.) Your soldering is functional. When you are doing quick iterations, and noting the effects of whatever rework you've just performed, you need certainty that your circuit is actually what you intended.

Tools:

With a Metcal (or equivalent) and one fine tip, one broad tip -- you can remove or install pretty much any surface mount leaded component -- from a 0402 resistor to a large fine pitch TQFP. This sort of thing is common. You can also remove and or install pretty much any through hole component, up to large connectors. I'm going to talk mainly about removal, because it's not talked about as much (as it should be) and it's the more difficult side of things.

Removing things:

1.) small 2 lead discretes -- easiest with tweez pencil, grab it, solder flows on both ends, pick up, easy. generally you'll want to keep the part handy as you may go back to it, often just solder the resistor or cap to some other pad nearby, tombstoned. If you have only one iron, and say you're removing a 0402 -- easiest is to add solder to both ends of it and dance the iron back and forth rapidly to the leads. If the thermal reliefs are decent (as they should be for a 0402) it will tombstone itself and come right up.

2.) soic -- easiest with two irons (perform the below at the same time on both sides), but if you've only one, no problem. Take a SOIC16, 8 pins a side. Flow much solder down one side, bridging all pins. With any tip you'll be able to slide back and forth, causing all 8 leads to become molten. You want to use enough solder to bridge REALLY well. Insert tip of tweezer or dental pick under body near molten side and lift slightly. DO THIS VERY GENTLY. If all of pins aren't actually molten, and you pry on it, you will lift pads. It takes very, very little pressure. Once one side has lifted slightly, go to the other side and do the same thing. Now your SOIC is sitting above the board on both sides, sitting on solder piling. Take some solder braid and wick the solder from underneath the pins. Your SOIC will come loose, and you can clean it and the pads up with wick. SOIC is good for reuse, no lifted pads. If you did this with one iron and had to slightly lever the part, reform the leads slightly using tweezers.

3.) TQFP fine pitch -- It's always best to have all the right tools, my guide is how to do it when you don't have the right tools -- but need to do it anyway, and still pull it off. These are tricky.

With 4 irons (2 people) I've performed the solder bridge method, works well. Just flow all pins and remove part. With 1 guy, one iron, it can be done but you'll have to reform some leads when you're done. What you want to do is use fine tweezers or dental pick, and you're going to heat up one pin at a time and use the tip of the tweezer or pick to pluck the pin forward, lifting it up. You want to really heat up the pad, make sure solder is fully molten. Adding some flux is a good idea. Fine pitch pads with tiny traces are notoriously difficult to rework without lifting pads -- because people don't heat enough before yanking. You will probably lose some no connect pads using this method, tough not too.

You want to use this method on as few of the pins as possible, as its the most dangerous method. I cant stress enough, HEAT before applying any upward pressure. You want to work yourself into position to use the solder bridge method.

Do the above on two opposing sides (sides A and C). Just work your way down and do all the pins on both sides. Make sure all pins you think are free really are -- go through with wick and suck up the solder under the leads you've lifted. With two sides lifted you're back to a SOIC essentially..use the solder bridge method to lift sides B and D.

I've done many dozens of large TQFPs this way, with one iron, with no lifted pads. If can be done, just be very careful and take your time.

4.) Large through hole things with many pins (connectors, power bricks, etc) --

discretion is the better part of valor. If you are dealing with something with many through hole pads that touch heavy ground or power planes on multiple pins -- your best bet is to destroy the part. Trying to solder suck or wick out power and ground pins with a single iron is sometimes just impossible to do -- you will be at it for a long time, until the pads finally falls apart and you lose the annular ring, and your board is damaged.

If you only have one or two pins connected to a plane -- and all the rest are signals pins -- then clear the signal pins using wick/sucker, and then try to heat the reaminder of your plane pins at once. If you can get them all to flow, you can just yank the part out -- and THEN clear those plane connected pins.

If your part doesn't lend itself to this -- get out the dremel tool or the cutters and go to work on the part, systematically chopping or cutting it down until you are left with nothing but the pins in the holes....then simply heat the pad and pull out the pins with tweezers. THEN clear the hole. It is almost always the right choice, I've seen more boards destroyed by people trying to remove large through hole connectors and power bricks, when preserving the part was not a necessity. Know the goal -- if the part can go, then chop it out in little chunks. Not only the right thing, but kind of fun, too.

OK, that's all I can type for now -- I'm sure everyone has their pet methods and whatnot, and there are always caveats. I think its good to have the tool bag to perform "down and dirty". Honestly most places I've been, that's all there is or is time for.