> My question, is why are people choosing the PIC family of
> microcontrollers over the HC11, especially the PIC16C74?

I am a hobbyist. I use the 16c84 and 16f84 because these chips used to be
the cheapest EEPROM (or FLASH) controllers available, with simple
programmer designs and plenty other info available on the web. If I had to
choose again I would also look at the low-end AVRs. Am I missing something?

regards,
Wouter.