coyoteboy wrote:
As an "academic" task I'm looking through the options for
microprocessors that are relatively easy to program

Heh. Dreamer. 8-)
There is a newsgroup that speciaizes in this.
If you are going to dabble, you should start reading it.
I'll give you some sample threads (plus 1 for starters):
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.e...antages-of-AVR
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....-*-*-*-sourced
http://groups.google.com/group/comp....C-code+Digikey

Is there a site[...]that compares the available architectures,
simplicity/expense of the programming hardware/softare etc?
I seem to only find commercially biased sites[...]
[...]picaxe[...]AVR ATMega[...]basic stamp[...]

http://groups.google.com/group/comp....ery-C-friendly

[...]and dont require expensive hardware

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.e...cks+3v3-supply
http://groups.google.com/groups/sear....arch.embedded