Many of the posts in this thread suggest that Pic unit costs are high and
that Microchip's management is taking unfair advantage because they have
great marketplace presence and due to support from designers typified by the
Piclist.

In the past six months two of our customers have received substantial (25%)
price reductions when the folks in Chandler went through a shrink, lowered
costs and passed along the savings. The trick is that the old non-shrunk
part is still offered for sale (for quality reasons) at the old price. If
one does not ask specifically for the new (B or whatever) version, they will
happily keep shipping you the old devices at the old prices. Obviously one
has to qo through a re-qualification proceedure but the evidence I see is
that, in fact, Microchip is lowering prices when it is justified
(sometimes).

Tom