There is one brain fart I have now realized.
I never did add a pull up on MCLR
Yet the programmer worked a while. Must have been luck maybe.
So Before I buy a new one i will add the MCLR pullup resistor and try to access the device again.

If it still doesn't work perhaps I will purchase one again and try to be more careful with it such as not allow the dat/clk to be outputs. I'm surprised that the device would be that sensitive knowing that those pins would be outputs by default.

I just ordered some new PIC's to try out that will give me a few more I/O pins and maybe I will have better luck.
And now that I am milling my own boards it will be a bit easier to make a dedicated ICSP header and whatnot and once I get a base board working that I like to be the basis for future products I can just produce the same working layout to begin a project with.

Also maybe someday I could learn to use DEBUG and not need to design my projects with an LCD so much for viewing my variables.