Back in the Elder Days, I built a Z80 system from scratch... wire-wrapping all the boards... But I didn't design all of it, most of it came from plans in the hobbyist magazines of the time. (Kilobaud & Byte) But once I got it working, I kinda was scared off by realizing that I'd have to write an OS for it - or figure out how to port CP/M to it. So I went out and bought an Atari 800. ;-)
You should check out places like Sparkfun or Adafruit. They have a lot off cool chips already soldered to breakout boards so you don't have to deal with those teeny packages. I've been wishing for a Zorro board with multiple SPI ports that could drive a bunch of those boards...
