John,

>...I actually took some courses on the dot net 1.0 stuff and I absolutely hated it. There were way too many links in the chain. This is getting good.

IMO, ASP.NET 2.0 is way better than the first versions, which were actually very good.

>... What is the timeframe for the release of the whales anyway?

Mary Jo had an article back in February, quoting Scott Guthrie on some dates... Beta this Spring, Go Live license by summer, release in 2007. May or may not happen, but they seem to be pushing hard for release this year.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=251