High voltage protection for a breakout board.

Group,

I have been working a design for a new breakout board for general use
in cnc applications. The new design is based on the SN74LV245AT IC,
wicth acts as a bi-directional buffer and has ESD (Electro Static
Discharge) protection for up to 2000V. I have been hoping to
eliminate the opto-isolators with the use of these IC, and will
greatly reduce the number of parts and simply assemble, thus enabling
the possibility to reduce the cost of the final product.

I know for most interfacing applications this IC is a great buffering
device, but ¿would it be good enough protection from a possible
failure of a stepper driver?

The datasheet for this IC can be found at :
http://www.cnc4pc.com/Tech_Docs/sn74lv245at.pdf

Thanks,

Arturo Duncan