stepper controller boards

Hi all,

to some of you , this may be repetitive, but
I'll ask anyway.

I need a 4 axis stepper contrller and
so far I only found 3 channel units.

Since I am comfortable in making my own,
does anybody know any good designs that
would allow for good control ?

Why is one style better/worse
than another. Since I'm not up to
servos or high power steppers,
I'm not up to Geico's (yet)

oop's Geko's, (Geico's is car insurance
here in New Jersey)

I do need to keep it all on one
parallel port, so multiple units is
not an option.

also, it there any benefit to using seperate
transistors (say TIP 120's) vs using a
dedicated chip like the Allegro UNC5804 ?

if this is too off topic let me know.

Dave