I started using microcontrollers with the Arduino / ATMega platforms because of the simple IDE and the large amount of additional material available.
Now I discovered a new platform and started building projects on it. Its the PSoC 4 family made by Cypress. You get a prototyping board with an ARM processor and everything you need to start for less than 5 €, the software is free. One of the included features is support for capacitive sensing without additional components.
These boards will replace Arduinos in some of my future projects.