1)Let forget S52(alltough i think its important for Kiran to investigate into noise problems on that mature product) .
2)Last time when i was worked with Motorola was in university 20 y. ago - 6800 and 68k , and later with 68705 - great windowed part for debugging.... Anyway - in these days there was only Intel and Moto (at leas here behind Iron whal). So i have big respect to Motorola.
3)Last years i'm working mainly with MSP430 from Texas. Since this is architecture from single producer it is interesting how many different parts they are producing around same core and what is pricing. I learned something important (maybe usuall for You) - when i must select new micro - i read datasheet and immediatelly- ERRATA datasheet, then i read pricing info( which is not very informative, real price is usually better) .
4)Next architecture i'll recognise is ARM, Freescale or not ;-) .
Last news i read was something called as common standard for periferrall access (in cortex-M?) , which sound very interesting.
regards