What you suggested is direct and most effective. I have and use the microchip's pickit2. Fr the sake of others who are keen on homebrueing a programmer, perhaps computerman29 ( a resident of Florida) efforted and made at home. later, on his request we tried to improve on the PCB artwork.
pickit2 can be used,
1. on ICSP pins of target PCB, and
2. breadboard for a DIP package for faster programming.
3. we can of course make a complex ZIF adopter for pickit2 for those who don't want to wire the 5 wires to respective pins.
however, while doing on pre assembled target board, unless we take precautions , the usb derived Vdd cant load the entire target board.
then perhaps we have to work with external supply of target board, switching off the pickit derived Vdd.
this wouldn't be possible if Mclr pin is off and using internal osc.
for that config we need to use VPP first programming,and that is possible only if pickit2 supplies Vdd also