Just use two soldering pencils to remove surface mount caps. I don't know why this idea doesn't penetrate better. It's easy. It's cheap. And it pretty much completely eliminates any danger of lifting traces, as long as one exercises a bit of patience when heating the component.

15 watt grounded pencils are under $10 each at Radio Shack. A pair of those will lift any SM capacitor or resister in a few seconds without all the angst about lifting traces and whether to alternate sides or use desoldering braid or whether to spend a small fortune on special tweezer tips.

I think one of the earlier posters touched on it briefly, but it really deserves more empasis, so I'm emphasizing it. 2 soldering pencils == trouble free SM (passive) component removal.