I second the vote for the Needham's EMP-20. If you were considering the
ProMate, the $449 for an EMP-20 isn't bad. It also qualifies as a
"production" programmer, since it verifies at the limits of supply
voltages. It will always take a few weeks for support of new chips, but
eventually they are all covered. Parallel port. Digi-Key throws in the PIC
personality module free(though you'll still need one or two others to
cover the whole line, at $25 each)

The Picstart Plus is a good choice for an inexpensive, development
quality, pics-only, windows-only, serial port programmer. I think the $149
price is still valid at Digi-Key.

I have never had trouble with either of them.

-bob