Maple seems like an excellent alternative
I bought an Olimex Maple and it is no Arduino. 
I have the Uno, Mega, and teensy and I have had no problems using LCDs, SDcards, and buttons.
However, the Maple has driver issues with Windows 7, that take a work around provided by someone outside of the LeafLabs team. The language is almost Arduino style but, not many of the libraries work. The LCD library has bugs that only allow you to use one line on a 2 lines display :(. I have posted about the lcd issue with no response. There is certainly no "Playground".
The processor and board are wonderful but, I am already frustrated that somethings that I though were simple do not work easily with Maple. I now have the task of learning libraries to try to fix problems myself.
If you want to see some of it for yourself, read a few pages of questions on their forum and look at how many are unresolved.