Every micro has its advantages and drawback, but I would not have ventured to say the PIC's are used only in toys or toy-like products.
I use PIC's at work, in industrial equipment. The great advantage I see with PIC's is the large number of available devices, which makes life easier when you just need a device with only a few more features.
PIC's are RISC machines, fast and code-efficient. Part of their speed is due to their being pipelined. On-board reset, brownout detectors, flexible oscillators (including internal RC), independent watchdog timer, high I/O drive capability, 10-bit A/D's, FLASH are some of the features. (I am not saying these features are not available on other micros, just showing they are not just meant for "toys").
Among the drawbacks: perhaps the fairly limited RAM, the limiting hardware stack (sometimes only 2-deep), a not-too-great interrupt system, some limitations due to program memory paging and RAM banking.
Development tools are available free from Microchip, including a simulator. Not exceptional, but downloadable for FREE.
The only way to compare micros is to actually try to use (or imagine) them in a specific application and see how it can be done with one or the other, including the code.