There is nothing wrong with a 68HC11. They are a bit dated.
There are only a few basic pic processors. The explosion comes in because they are packaged in an wide variety of memory sizes and peripheral devices. They even come with built in rf transmitters.
I do not know if you have ever used a ROM monitor or ICD (in circuit debugger). There is a tool known as an ICD2 from Microchip that has been cloned many times by many people. The ICD2 allows you to do run control (step and breakpoints), and examine memory. Fully symbolic.
Bill has put together a kit for one of these clones, The Inchworm, that is quite workable. It will seem slow compared to a true emulator. USB versions are faster.
Microchip provides a development environment for free. Several compilers exist. Some are free. Some are free but limited in some way. You can find C, Basic, Jal and Forth.
HTH
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