Whilst I prefer not to use PIC, sometimes my customers would like that I use them. If companies had to rely on the sales to hobbyists, then they'd be broke overnight. You'll find Microchip have many customers and they aren't going broke (at the mmoment), so don't be too quick to dismiss the PIC. Also, why limit your choice to PIC or AVR? There's plenty of others that have thier place in the market - HC08,HC12,HC16 (very nice to write code for in assembler), MSP430, ARM (some parts are cheaper and better performance than PIC & AVR combined) and the list goes on. I prefer to chose the best device for the job that I have or can get tools for. Most of the time it comes down to what you know as most devices have the feature set you require.
At the hobbyist level, I've got a least 4 architectures to choose from! I helps to have some experience in a variety of devices, that way you can make a better judgement for the task at hand.