Even for PIC and Atmel, you have much more choice if you're ok with QFN and TSOP packages. The ARM microcontrollers aren't actually so much harder to use than

Even for PIC and Atmel, you have much more choice if you're ok with QFN and TSOP packages. The ARM microcontrollers aren't actually so much harder to use than the Atmel ones. I remember thinking that it was going to be much harder the first time I tried it, but if you stick with one of the popular ranges (e.g. STM), then the dev tools are good and there's lots of help available online.