With regard to the ECS (AGA?) chipset, what chips are actually involved (I have a general idea, but could use some input as I am concerned about conflicting advice). Also how "mechanically savy" do I need to be? Will there be a lot of soldering (i.e. removing of chips/resoldering of chips)
OCS chips are not typically soldered but come in square sockets. You have to be careful to lift on all 4 corners with a screwdriver and replace with equivalent ECS chips. I've upgraded an A500 to a Fat Agnus before so I could use a PAL/NTSC switcher program to run some foreign software. It should be pretty painless.
Upgrading the Kickstart should be equally painless in an A500 because it doesn't have the additional addressing capacity of an A1200.
IMHO, though, you should follow the advice the others were giving and get an A1200 instead. It will save you hassle while giving you more capabilities than an upgraded A500 will ever have. (A500=16bit custom chips OCS/ECS, A1200=32bit custom chips AGA.)
