I2C lcd ( arduino ) with PICBASIC, help

[richard]

I have a pickit3 and a pickit2 programmer the pk3 only ever gets used if its the only choice (and it very seldom is) . the gui for the pk2 is just so much better to use . serial debugging is just so easy with the pk2 and its built in comms package . by far the pk2 is my tool of choice for icsp.
I have never bothered to use either of them in command line mode for programming directly from micro code studio although it is fairly easy to do .
I must admit that I have not looked to see if microchip have made a better/upgraded gui for the pk3 for at least a year now , my info may be out of date .
I also wonder if any body has tried the cheap pk2 clones that are on ebay , are they compatible with the microchip pk2 gui ? are they any good?