Yep, it does seem like common sense when you deal with chips a lot, but I'm always wary of people who mightn't be so sure. I remember working in a computer parts shop (God, it's nearly 10 years ago now! and had a guy ring up and say the new Athlon CPU he'd bought had failed after a half an hour. We asked him to bring the machine into us, opened it up... And the CPU heatsink was stuck on with a nice, fat piece of sticky foam - the kind used for putting up signs, hooks etc! He said he did it because the cooler clips were too tight to get on properly!
Anyway, back on topic, thermal grease (I've always called it thermal compound myself) is the best for heatsinks, though it's not an adhesive. You can get small coolers with thermal adhesive on them, and thermal transfer adhesive itself, though it's rare and not as efficient as the compound. Still, it probably wouldn't take all that much cooling to get the chip working properly again if heat is an issue...
