well for now we are talking about very small motors, the kind you would find in toys, like lego motors. Infact I plan to build one with lego connections that can drive two motors at variable speed in both directions by remote, for tank syle drive RCs, I figure its a good starter project for RC robots because its small and the legos provide most of the structure.
I have nothing against buying new ICs either, and later I will want to drive the kind of motors that are in a racing RC, and of course it would be a good idea to make them able to handle the more powerfull ones in that range. But the main considerations now in choosing new driver ICs to order is that they can be used for variable speed and direction drive, preferably of two motors, but I can just use two chips if not. I realize theres several ways to do this though, and I'm reading about all the projects already out there that do this, theres pleny of info in those. But I'm still mentioning it here cause most of the time when I come up with my own way of doing stuff off of projects I find out its out of date, or that I'm using something wrong, and you guys are always helpful. I'm guessing what I want is a full bridge driver, but I don't know the full range of whats availble.