I wanted to start with PIC32s some months ago and asked myself the same question. Reading endless discussions on forums like this, the consensus seems to be buy the original instead of a clone. I didn't buy the original but I bought OLIMEX's clone (through amazon, I used a 10€ coupon I got a few months back, so it was 26 € shipped). It works well. A china clone would cost me also 25 €. Like someone said a couple posts back, if you have to debug your debugger... you have the wrong debugger. All this still do not answer your question, I know. I also didn't find a definitive answer.
If you are serious about the PIC32, you may consider the ICD3. Why do I say that, debugging with the PICKIT3 is slow, dog slow, I assume that it is better with the ICD3. The PICKIT3 doesn't allow you to change/add/delete a breakpoint when you are debugging. You set/clear bkpts, compile, load and debug.
Another point, a bit more worrisome is the lack of optimization options on the compiler without paying Microchip for GCC!. I tried compiling MC's toolchain but it aborts on different places depending on the host. There are other precompiled toolchains available but do not play well with MPLABX... On this regard, the ARMs a bit better. No toolchain problems or programmer (for Cortex at least), but also no narrow 28 PIN version either
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