I can't comment on the Skipper because I've never flown one, but from what I can gather it is essentially a Beech built Tomahawk. Depends on who you talk to but I believe Beech came up with the the design first. I may be mistaken on that though, so don't hold me to it.
I do have more than a few hours in Tomahawks however. In a nutshell IMHO it's a terrific airplane. I would buy one in a second if I were looking for a two place airplane.
The spin characteristics of the Tomahawk have been maligned more than Bill Clintons credibility. IMHO unjustly so. Dig up the AOPA Air Safety study on the Tomahawk. It is an accurate and fair analysis and should alleviate any concerns anyone has about the safety of the airplane.
It was designed to be a trainer, unlike the 152. Piper surveyed CFI's to find out what they wanted in a training airplane. What they asked for, and got, was a stable, comfortable, reliable A/C that required a student to properly learn how to use the rudder.
It does does spin differently than a 152. The key word being differently. Whereas the 152 just kinda lazily rolls over the Tomahawk definitely drops one wing quickly and you usually end up upside down as you enter the spin. After that it recovers quite nicely using normal control inpuits for spin recoveries. Every Tomahawk I ever spun required definite control inputs to make it spin, just like any other airplane. If you stall it uncoordinated you can spin it, if you don't you can't. I also never had any difficulty recovering from a spin.
There are a few rare cases where skilled, experienced pilots intentionally spinning Tomahawks got themselves into trouble. In one case there were two people killed. That can also be said about a lot of other airplanes too, but it is the Tomahawk that gets the bad rap. Again, unjustly so in my opinion.
As much as I like the Tomahawk I would, all else being equal, buy a Skipper instead. Personally, I think Beech makes a better product. The fit and finish is usually much nicer on a Beech.
I've helped buy a few Tomahawks. Plan on spending about $18K for a typical used needs a little work airplane with a clean history. There are some outstanding low time restorations out there in the $25K range.
The only AD that is a real concern is the one that places an arbitrary life limit on the wings at 11000 hours. It's uncalled for and is a nice way for Piper to assure themselves of having to build new airplanes. There is no way around it at this point, however, I've been in contact with an engineer that has been woking on getting a mod approved by the feds to get around this AD. No joy yet.
In short, Tomahawks are terrific airplanes. Don't buy the negative hype about it's spin characteristics. They aren't "Traumahawks".