Thanks for all your responses. Saved me a lot of time and introduced me quickly to the uC world. Here are a couple of things I would like to clarify:

1) I agree that saving a couple of bucks in buying a board isn't worth the troubles while developing using the board.

2) I didn't know 64k RAM and 64k FLASh are humoungus for an 8051 app. Good point. I couldn't have know that without some experience. Now I know what I have to look for in terms of memory size.

3)I have almost decided to get a f12x or f02x from SiLabs. But.... is there a FLASH memory for code on f12x? If not, the 8k ram on board is going to be shared between code and data?? These things are not clear to me.

4)About the whole ICE debate... I think I know the boundaries between a PC, IDE, and the board itself. Atleast until I come here again exposing my "impressive lack of understanding" :-).

Thanks again to all.
-Raj.