"Balking at the $50+ charge for turnkey assembly, I opted to take the financially responsible route and pay $200+ for a hot-air rework station to solder it myself."
$200 is around 3-4x more than necessary for a decent hot air station these days; I had to check the date on the article as that would've been a more reasonable price 10-15 years ago.
You can get a $15 hot air station and it's fine for getting quite a lot done! Look for clones of the Atten 858D. And come say hi in #electronics on Libera :)