In my very uneducated opinion, I think you'd have trouble programming the thing.
It's already on a board, the chips are pretty hard to desolder, then you'd have to find a datasheet, figure out how everything else in the board is connected to it, etc etc.
And, I'm guessing it wouldn't be a reprogrammable chip...
I'd say too much work. Buy a chip made for hobbyists.
Then again, I really don't know what I'm talking about. But those are the reason's I wouldn't attempt the project unless I saw that it could be done. (I'm no electrical engineer, I won't be pioneering new ways to do anything in the field... trust me.)