Hi,
First off, you need to do a little search in this forum to see the many comments about the Pickit3.
Compared to the ever popular Pickit2, the Pickit3 is overpriced and under developed - while Microchip are making some improvements it is uncertain how good it will finally be.
For the typical Diy-ers the Pickit2 will more than meet their needs, unless you are looking to use the latest very high end chips.
As you say you have an existing programner, using the 16F chips and use a breadboard icsp, then buying a dev board with difficult to change smd chips does not seem to offer you many advantages.
You could easily do all those dev kit experiments on your own breadboard - all the software is free to download from Microchip
Would think buying a basic Pickit2 or 3 would readily meet your needs / ability level.