Paul Burridge wrote:

I've ended up with a decoupling cap that straddles diagonally over the
top of the IC. For some reason, on this chip, the supply and gnd pins
are on opposite corners, which is a nuisance, so the cap's leads are
longer than I'd have liked. I suppose this sort of situation doesn't
help?

There are socket with integrated caps:

http://www.mill-max.com/images/products/pdf/021.pdf

--
Frank Buß,
http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de