I have an EasyPIC5 and it came with a 16F877 (or 877A - can't remember). I comes with it's own software for loading the compiled HEX which can be generated through MSC and MPASM (the latter being part of Microchips MPLAB]
Personally I would recommend the any of the EasyPIC boards for most of the reasons you mentioned plus there are loads of additional boards that simply plug onto the headers, and example is shown below
I've been happy with my EP5 board and feel it's been well worth the investment. Yes the downside is that it runs at 5v and there is no 3.3v regulation - but then maybe the EasyPIC7 is just around the corner ????
Interestingly having revisited the LQ site they have a board that features support for a range of 16bit chips http://www.pic16.com/en/wzcapi/dsPIC3.htm
It also has some nice features like serial over Ethernet on board
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