Well.... The 858 arrived today, coinciding with the arrival of an SMD practice board. 0805, 0603, PQFP44 all seemed, well, easy!
Solder paste applied with a needle in little blobs on each pad. It can be tricky to control the flow rate as the rate it comes out has a lag behind when you apply pressure so you have to keep moving.
I got a few bridges on the PQFP44 but I would have got that anyway soldering by hand.
A few of them 0805 (out of about 40 of them) tome stoned on me, but I was able to poke them back down with the tweezers.
The one thing that does concern me and why I didn't finish the board (another PQFP44, 2x SOIC16, SOT23s and a few MELFs)... is the fumes. The flux off the solder paste has a horrid smell to it, as does the cutting mat under the board when it gets hot. A real nasty platsic acidic smell that I could feel attacking my lungs. So I stopped there.
Will need to find an old PC fan to keep a good air current across the desk. I normally get away with when soldering as I use a magnifying lamp which places my nose and mouth away from the solder fumes, but I was using the hot air gun with the jewelers visor thing and even through the gun was blowing it away it was still getting to me.
Anyway, I call that a success. Lots got soldered and seem to test on the board via the test pads though I'm not exactly sure what the values should be. Nobody got burnt and the smoke alarm didn't go off.