Well after complaining about the difficulty of programming PICs "https://www.robotshop.com/letsmakerobots/node/9162" I remembered bootloaders. Originally I thought that boatloaders were just for Arduino's and PICAXE's, but after some investigating, I realized that they're a completely valid alternative to programming hardware!
I still need to do a lot more research, but after reading sparkfun's PIC bootloader tutorial: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/tutorial_info.php?tutorials_id=70&page=1 I'm kind of getting use to the idea.
Anyone have any suggestions where I can learn more?
P.S. Sorry no hyperlinked text...Chrome doesn't let me do it.