> If this is correct, I rack my brain trying to think of any advantages bit-banging on a PIC would have over an on-chip USART.  What am I missing?

Generally you're right. However, there are a few cases where bit-banging
can be necessary:

1. You need one more than provided. Perhaps you're using a 10Fxxx PIC
   which have no USART.
2. Perhaps you want something other than standard serial, such as SPI
   or I2C on a chip that doesn't support it or again, you want one more
        than are provided.
3. You want a protocol which isn't provided on the chip.

Basically all of these go to one general rule:

  You want one more of something than the chip provides.

Other than that I don't see any reason to bit-bang.

However, this is for my personal use. If I wanted to sell something in
large quantites, it might be more economical for me to spend the programming
time to bit-bang something on a less expensive chip.
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D. Jay Newman           !
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