Yep, ive tried hand pasting 64/100 pin ICs and reflowing them quite a bit.
It's more trouble than its worth.
Just put on some magnifying glasses (or use a desk mag lamp thing).
Apply a good amount of flux to all the pads (very important). Then place the IC and use a small tip iron with some 0.3mm solder wire to hand solder a pin at a time.
Drag soldering is faster but takes more practice (except for DFN chips which drag solder awesomely)
If you drag solder QFN's use a really wide tip and do like 4 pins at once, remember to drag away from the pin and not across it.
It really isn't slow to hand-solder QFP once you get good at it. The joints are better/shiner too.
It solders really fast because a single pin as almost no thermal mass. You basically just go around touching each pin and adding a little solder to the iron tip now and then. Because of all the flux the solder on the iron flows off into the pad as soon as you touch it.
Fine pitch QFP and hot air just don't mix unless you use a paste stencil.
The unevenness in hand pasting always crates bridges, or as you say, the paste runs under the IC.