Besides cost (?), pleasure and knowledge (?!) gained in assembling mine, what are the (concrete) advantages of ICD2 clones over the orginal ICD2 from Microchip (USB version)?
The commerical units are all made with surface mount parts. If it breaks it is junk. Many of the DIY jobs are all through-hole with DIPS in sockets. Given that you also have the schematics for them you can repair them.