Help picking replacement stepper driver board

[herring_fish]

I have a project that I have been working on for quite a long time. It has been going very slowly because I have a lot of things that are higher on the priority list and I have had issues fabricating the easiest parts without a machine shop. I am in the final assembly phase but I shorted out my second axis driver board from Pololu.
Pololu - A4988 Stepper Motor Driver Carrier with Voltage Regulators

This is the second axis in action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK4hXVRhH2k]000 1969 - YouTube

Since I have to buy a new board, I thought that I would buy a second Rugged stepper driver board like the one I bought for the first axis.
Rugged Motor Driver

Although Pololu's new model won't short so easily, I didn't like all of the wires and liked Rugged's stack-ability which cuts down on the wiring. I hooked the Rugged board to the second axis assembly, as a test but it didn't have much torque. It would start to chatter if it was put under much load. I wrote the manufacturer and I was told that the Pololu board had micro stepping and the Rugged board didn't and that was why it was not smooth and low on torque at low speed, short runs. The motor that I use for the second axis is this:
Pololu - Stepper Motor: Bipolar, 200 Steps/Rev, 28x32mm, 3.8V, 670mA

I didn’t do any research the first time. I just stumbled over both of the boards and I thought that I would ask if there would be a better choice for a low end stack-able stepper driver board that would be good for short, quick motions like I use. At around 20 or 30 bucks, I might spend more for rushed shipment than for hardware. Is there a better board that offers good torque, good short protection and good code examples?

P.S.
I did some looking around today and found these. Are any of these a good product match for me?
http://iteadstudio.com/store/images/..._shield_DS.pdf
Motor Driver Shield for Arduino
Arduino - ArduinoMotorShieldR3
Robot Power Products - MegaMoto Motor Control Shield for Arduino