When we grade boards, we look at overall IC density of the board, presence of gold plating on fingers or pins, and number and type of sockets or slots for CPU or IC chips. In your examples below, as-is, I would give the following:
6: Telecom. Good amount of ICs present. Removing the two socketed ICs in the lower left shouldn't hurt the board's value.
DSC01399: Peripheral. Too many capacitors and other non-IC components on the board. Removing the one socketed IC won't hurt the value of the board.
16: Gold fingered card. Removing the socketed IC won't downgrade the card. Trimming the fingers off will downgrade the card to peripheral.
15: Peripheral. Not enough IC population across the board to give it a higher grade. Removing the socketed IC won't hurt the value of the board.
DSC01384: Peripheral. Too many power and non-IC components on the board. Removing the socketed ICs won't hurt the value of the board.
DSC01385: Telecom. I would leave this one as is to guarantee Telecom grade. There is good IC population over the entire board and non-IC components are very few and located in one small area. If any of the EPROMS have gold legs, I would remove those, as those have more value than a regular IC. Otherwise, place them back in their sockets.
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