I have not done a thorough re-cap of any compact mac board, but I've done plenty of comparable operations on other circuit boards. JDW has a large amount of experience with this, and so you should pay close attention to his advice.

Although I have access to some pretty advanced soldering equipment at work, I have fairly rudimentary tools at home. Still, I make out ok for the most part. I have removed surface mount caps using two cheap soldering irons (one on each lead, natch). If you work quickly, you can easily avoid the exploding cap problem, as well as minimally damage the traces (since you won't really be putting much mechanical stress on the pads). That said, protective eyewear is always a good idea when soldering. We had a close call with a student soldering a little too close to his face. A bit of solder spat up into his eye. His contact lens saved his eye. I'd rather not rely on that sort of luck.