>For data handling. I'm very picky. I've been spoiled with VFP having very good SQL support for local and remote data manipulation through the SQL standard. Unless full support for ANSI SQL and/or D (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_(data_language_specification)) for data manipulation it is a kludge in any way you describe it. One could stress again and again that it is not that limiting and it is not that difficult. But that is not the point. It is propriotary, non standard, non scalable solution. Why the hell was SQL not build into ADO.net from the beginning ?? Can anyone explain ??

Yes. I mean, anyone can guess that selling things separately makes more sales than selling them together. Not that it always makes sense in the long run, but such is the nature of the wallmart street - its attention span is quarter of a year.