For myself, a noob, I have the Lab-X1, Olimex PIC-P18, and some modules to make bread-boarding a little simpler. The X1 board is quite nice and has many features, but some are multiplexed which confuses me sometimes. The P18 board has much less, but I have wired some things I use frequently into the proto area. The modules are a 5V/3.3V power module, a serial module, and an LCD module—all I have built so far. These have headers and are plugged in to the BB as needed and wired quickly as all the caps/resisters/etc are wired on the board so that I only have to jumper the microprocessor pins.

I should say that I only use two PICs: the 44 pin 16F877A and the 18 pin 16F88 as so far these have given me enough headaches.