I'm also experiencing problems with the read and write commands for the onboard eeprom it give's
compiler error's; it doesn't give errors when I compile a program for a 16f877 using the old
compiler; the new compiler does give error's I'm using the MPASM V03.70.
New MPLAB version 3.90 can maybe solve the problem. Wich version of PBP are you using?

I do a lot of 18F452 project as now and no problems with the WRITE/READ statement. Are you using some OPTION_REG statement with 18Fxxx ? in case... this is your problem. Some register of the 18Fxxx are different than the F877.