I would like to see you do a post using a breadboard to do a firmware read.

So far the designs I make for real testing I try to base them on the components I have on hand and use a breadboard so I can easily reuse them. Making an electronic board would imply an additional expense and it doesn't make sense if I won't give it a real use (unless the money comes from donations), recently I have created some but they were for private projects and I can't publish them because when I get paid for those projects they don't belong to me (I don't own the copyright), but if I find the need to make one for myself I will share it happily.

Regarding the size vs number of pins in microcontrollers I think it is not the correct relationship to consider, there are microcontrollers for SMD assembly that have up to 80 pins and are smaller than the 40 as the one shown in this article, on the other hand neither the size and number of pins defines the power or capabilities of the microcontroller, for example the 18f2550 has 28 pins and is smaller than the 16f877a but has up to 4 times more power. I think that the number of pins is only important if you will use many inputs and outputs, but not as a priority because there are components that allow to expand the connection capabilities in microcontrollers of few pins.