@ezuk: both. I find working with legacy devices more practical since they are supposed to be: cheap, standardized, fully developed, and i expect to see alot of projects using these devices which allows me to gather as much information as i want. Im also in it for the experience, since like what ive said before im a newbie with microchips and electronics. I also think that learning to code the TCP/IP stack would bring me closer to make my own embedded devices with networking capability.
@gradtje: yes, infact, we are planning to interface an external memory device, albeit not an EEPROM, but an MMC card (larger memory but somewhat slower) connected via SPI protocols. This is why we prefer to use the 18f45j10.