Here is the kit I bought.
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+1 what Dennis said, but I did the PicKIT 3.
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I can't speak highly enough of the quality of product from j1sys mentioned by others here.
When I was buying new I had the option of pickit 2 and pickit 3. If I was recommending this to others I would recommend the pickit 3. A lot of the earlier issues that made pickit 2 a better option than pickit 3 are no longer factors in decision making. The larger factor is future life of the product. pickit 2 will slowly become less useful as newer chips are released, which will not be supported on the pickit 2.
For the price I would buy the bundle with all four adapters if your budget permits it. Many products from RJ now offer the ability to hookup the programmer directly to the PCB; however, if you're building lots of boards and devices you may find it easier to just use an adapter and plug in each micro-controller prior to inserting them into the assembled boards. With the breakout boards in these kits it provides another option to troubleshoot with. On my first express we had one bad solder joint on the ICSP header, which prevented the chip from being programmed correctly. It partially worked; however, it provided the wrong checksums back to the application. We troubleshooted it quickly by putting the chip into the adaptor and confirmed it was not an issue with the chip or the firmware file. We then tested and re-soldered on header pin on the express board.
