"I found that Zilog is selling its Z8 encore MCU development tool for only $49.95."

You need to check very carefully precisely what you get for that fifty dollars!
eg,

* Will they ship to your country?

* Do you get a full 'C' compiler (unlikely) or just a limited "trial" version?
Similarly, do you get a full Assembler & Linker/Locator, or just some limited single-file assembler thing?

* What debugging tools are included?

* What support (if any) do you get

etc, etc