I don't really understand what you are doing. Many people solder gull wing devices like SOPs, SSOPs, TSSOPs and QFPs by hand quite easily. I have no idea why you need to bend pins to use any of those. What are your concerns?
The cost of setup is not so much that machine assembly of prototypes is really cost prohibitive. I think I am typically charged $200 or so. I suppose they might charge a bit more for the unit cost if you are only building a half dozen or so. One house all but refused to hand assemble three of a test fixture with SMD components. This was 13 years ago and I think they still had equipment to facilitate the hand insertion of DIPs in PCBs by shining a light where the chip should go. They said the labor was cost prohibitive.
Sometimes it is hard for an engineer to understand the issues of an assembly house, particularly the difference between what a motivated engineer can do and what an hourly worker is willing to do.