I was kind of avoiding moving to a Pickit3, but I broke the usb connector off my spare pickit2, and the Pickit2 can't program a PIC18F47J53. Boo!

I didn't really have any problems getting the Pickit3 to work. But I think I had to open it up in MPLAB IDE to upgrade the firmware. It pretty much did it automatically once I selected the programmer.

I use it with its stand alone software, which is very similar to the look and feel of the PicKit2 software, only the PicKit3 is missing the UART tool, and the logic tool. I really do miss the UART tool. That was a nice feature. (I thought new versions were supposed to have MORE stuff )

Another annoyance is that the Pickit3 software doesn't list the last used hex codes under File, like the Pickit2 did. So, you have to add a few extra click to get to your hex codes.

Ah well. I would still suggest the Pickit2, unless you need to program chip that is not on it's compatibility list.