Small update.

I've been playing with the PCB layout for the PIC16LF1704+RT8299 solution. I wanted to accomplished three things:

1. Provide a better GND plane for the high-current path.
2. Make the board smaller.
3. Keep it to two layers (for cost reasons).

It took some doing, but I got it. Here's L1.

And here's L2 (notice the nice GND across the middle of the board).

Satisfied, I ordered it through OSHPark and DirtyPCB. The latter fab house was picked because of the $0.56 I can get in volume, compared to the $1.60 from OSHPark. Plus, the boards come in red (that's got to count for something). We'll see how they compare to one another.

Hell, if this board works out, we might have ourselves a winner.