I wholeheartedly recommend the MBED platform for getting into embedded design for the ARM processors.
www.mbed.orgSince its free and you dont need a compiler it would be very good for hams!
Hams could share their code and very soon we could have a good ham repository of ARM code in MBED.
ARM's are so cheap these days there is no logical reason not to use them. The power that have suit many ham projects because
most of the stuff hams would use micro controllers could be considered embedded designs.
Development boards for the ARM processors are as low as 7 dollars.
The MBED project is a very neat idea and would suite the ham radio hobby very well