Stick a logic probe on the clk and data pins of the pic chip while its being programmed, see if there is any data flow, if not then you might have blown one of the line drivers in the pickit, dont put your logic probe ont he mclr pin unless you know it can take the programming voltage.
I've blown a pickit 3 too, but it took quite a bit to blow it.
I guarantee he hasnt blown anything, I am going to bet he uses win 7 64 bit
I got my first pk3 from Rapid but it dosnt matter where you buy it from, if it goes wrong stick a support ticket in, they send a new one, sometimes as long as the pk3 is seen you can reflash it, but thats a real pain. Inside the case is a tiny row of holes that you can put a header on to reflash, but so far I have managed to brick3 beyond reflash and each was purely uploading the new firmware. Best way is tuen off the firmware update option and let the pk3 use whats on your machine locally. for some reason I wasnt able to do that with mine. Another way around it is to use a VM on win7 64 and have xp on it, then when you swap chip families do it via xp then switch back to win7. A real pain I know.
The ICD3 is ace except they insist on that crappy RJ11 socket!! I have built loads of break outs for it but the cable is awful and breaks often.
They gave me the ICD3 the second time I bricked a pk3, this 3rd one is sat on the bench, I cant be bothered sending it off to IRELAND again to get another, so will stick with the icd3 and last pk3 we have. But mostly I am now using 8051 and emf32 bit ARM M0 and M3/M4 chips and boards.
Great Dev kits but no way would I build my own board for those chips!!! over 100 silly BGA pads! The 8051 chips from sil labs are really nice though, even some with built in wireless, I have there 868 (or whatever it is) MHz dev kit! with the rubber duck antenna on I had the boards talking at over 3 KM away on 5db power running off 2 AA batteries lol, was really cool seeing as the power goes upto 14db.with the little pcb antenna kit it cuts the range down alot but its plenty.
The kits were for something dad is upto, but they gave him so many I got a couple