if I used something voltage driven, I'd have to build/write something to send variable voltage, wouldn't I? I was attracted by the Futaba VFD serial command set I saw when building that driver's display (including dimming), but that doesn't mean that there's anything equivalent for an LED-type display, does it? So, something in the "driver guide" display that takes serial messages and changes voltage....

With any of the first chips you'd need a voltage signal to them.
The last ones listed with the microprocessor interface probably mean you can send a bit pattern and get whatever pattern you want (not limited to bar or dot).

There are also very generic shift registers with LED driver combined. Just shift in your bit pattern from the micro...

There seems to be fairly "smart drivers" that handle 7-segment displays (say up to 8 chars) - not too many general dotmatrix LED displays around (apart from the ad-banner style ones frequently seen in stores - might be a bit large for you), most are a number of 7 or 16 segment displays.

/Michael