[sdiy] MPLAB-X alternative

[Roman Sowa]

Can anyone recommend an alternative to Microchip's MPLAB-X?
All I need is just assembler, simulator, and obviously a way to program 
ICs with ICD3 or anything else.
I will not elaborate why MPLAB-X is a pile of unusable crap, let's say 
I'd rather give up PICs in total than use it.

And the only reason I tried MPLAB-X, and tried several times, was that 
new devices are not supported in good old MPLAB IDE 8. And the main 
reason I need new PIC devices is because in contrary to old ones they're 
available this year, sometimes even in stock at distributors, and also 
come with more memory and peripherals, not to mention lower price than 
older PICs.

I reckon there's no way to make MPLAN 8 accept new devices by simply 
writing some new config/definition files, huh?

Roman