Kevin,

As I said, I really am too busy for all this interpersonal ad hominem stuff. Nobody ever said MS wants everybody to use Linq to SQL or all the rest of it, and we have discussed the worthlessness of the "ad populum" and "ad hominem" fallacies more than once. Give over.

To focus on the technical issues you touch on:

If you honestly want a list of about a dozen different instances where generated LINQ to SQL code is a far cry from what you'd write on your own, I'll give them to you

Why, when I've already acknowledged your point? Especially when it's just as easy to compile a list of highly effective SQL generated by Linq to SQL for complex tasks that many developers typically would have achieved using a series of standard queries with output needing to be munged into shape, or that would have required detailed consideration by a SQL expert to achieve as good a result. You must have seen some of these while compiling your negative list.

Lets not forget it's still a beta product. There does seem to be an expectation that many (most?) SQL wrinkles will be ironed out before primetime. If they aren't, that's a definite black mark. But there's already a whole swag of Linq to SQL changes between beta1 and beta2- for example, VB now has a "distinct" query expression that affects efficiency ;-) and check out the new "Contains" extension method that wipes out one inefficiency that used to cause a heterogeneous join. The arrival of some query expressions for VB but not C# is interesting... is this one of the VB/C# demarcations that people have been predicting, or just a timing issue?

Anyway, as per my original post: are there other "constraints" or technical objections to Linq to SQL? Heck, I'm not wed to it and have no vested interest one way or another, so I'm all ears.

So the full solution I previously provided can be cut in half if you don't need to set non-NULLs to NULL etc etc etc etc...

A cynic might observe you're slamming Linq to SQL for beta inefficiencies while glossing over those of your own preferred technique. Change tracking comes with Linq to SQL for free- even by default, depending how you proceed.

More than happy to discuss any other technical issues you choose to raise.

BTW, there's a difference between "tortuous" and "torturous". ;-)