The VS designers don't do everything for you. You'll need to work directly in XAML at some point.

>Funny that you should mention the second book. I actually got it for a Christmas gift. I'm thinking of taking it back though since it appears to be using VS2005. I'd prefer to learn it from a VS2008 perspective. Anyway, I suppose it won't hurt to learn raw XAML in the mean time. Oh yeah, and before that, learn the .NET way of thinking :)