I want a couple of servos to listen for P.C. input (data from OSC protocol), can I bypass having to use an Arduino? ...and whack a stripped usb cable straight into a prototype board? 

by bypass having to use an arduino I mean any kind of sheild? polulu would be perfect but im trying to avoid needing any of this.

My issue for finding tutorials and documentation on the subject is not quite knowing what keywords to search for, could someone point me in the right direction?
If I understand your question correctly you're asking if you can control servos with OSC and no microcontroller.
OSC is a protocol used for networking and communication between synthesizers, similar to midi in that, but totally different in the way OSC sends data which looks a bit like XML. 
There's a couple of problems here:
1. Servos will not respond to OSC-signals. You could use MAX/MSP to generate servo-pulses from the OSC. The problem arises whan you are going to send this to the servos using usb. 
2. USB, a fast data-transmission technology, is not suitable to be connected straight into a servomotor.

Arduino uses an atmega16u to transform the data from usb to serial (called a usb to serial programmer) for programming and communication. Then the microcontroller (atmega168/328) takes this and creates a pulse and a signal for the servo-motors. 

To control servos without a micro-controller using USB is impossible. 

It is be possible to control electronics using the serial-port and low-level coding. Used to do stuff like that on a Commodore 64 a time ago. Before these affordable, stable, reliable avr, arm and pic programming cards came out.  

A tip: It is possible to load a program onto an atmega168/328 using a Arduino UNO or similar. Take the chip off of the programming card(ie. the Arduino UNO) and create a stripped down version, containing the micro-controller chip, 16kHz crystal, some capacitors and an usb to serial converter/ftdi-cable. 

Regards
Krister Borge