I still use my iron and solder wire to do QFPs. I find doing QFP's without a stencil, just using the syringe to put down the paste isn't good enough to prevent bridging and if I'm going to wick the bridges I might as well just use the iron and wire to load the pins with solder rather than paste. The only thing I really need the paste for is QFN's.
Well to control bridging I just adjust the mix to be a bit weaker on the metal...down to 75%.
So a roll-your-own-paste has its advantages. But perhaps the hot air pencil does a more complete job than a normal iron. There's no impediment to the capillary wicking as caused by a regular iron.
I still use my iron and solder wire to do QFPs. I find doing QFP's without a stencil, just using the syringe to put down the paste isn't good enough to prevent bridging and if I'm going to wick the bridges I might as well just use the iron and wire to load the pins with solder rather than paste. The only thing I really need the paste for is QFN's.
I use a small syringe needle for all SMT. I don't squeeze the paste through it, just pick some up from my tub of solder paste and drop it on each pad. Works great for SSOP and SOIC, not tried on QFN. Makes 0805 parts easier than through hole, in my opinion.
It is better than using a normal needle because it has a hole through the middle and an angled end, that gives something to scoop a tiny amount of paste up with. At first I had to fix a few bridges on chip parts, but you soon learn how much paste to put down.
This way woirks ok; sandwich the overhead tranparency film on top of your printed PCB artwork, and clamp it between 2 pieces of clear acrylic about 3mm or 5mm thick. You have to clamp it pretty tight so it doesn't bulge, then drill through with a small PCB drill where the pads are. Then when you pull it apart you have the transparency film with a neat hole everywhere you need a solder paste dot.
Remember to clamp it real tight (I have some alligator spring type wood clamps) or you won't get clean holes in the film they will be munched or deformed and look like volcanoes. Afterward you can do some light sanding of the film with 1200 wet and dry to remove any small burrs.