I haven't read the whole branch, sorry if I missed the point. What I think is Linq* is 8th wonder of .Net if not the world:) In some point in time Linq2S or L2E might seem to be awkward, slow working or whatever. But it has developed and continue to develop. People said L2S was a dead solution but it is live and well. New projects exist that would make Linq based solutions lightning fast, fast enough that no VFP developers has seen before (neither .Net). That is in theory maybe but there are targets to have subsecond response times for queries against 1 billion rows (PLinq,DryadLinq).
Setting perfromance aside, even for an SQL oriented guy like me, Linq is an easy and OOPish Linq to data < g >. Sometimes I use it just to get T-SQL I need in VFP (it is easier to express my intent in object query). A simple example would be, "get any products that are sold to USA customers". Doing that in T-SQL is not hard but is not very easy either. In Linq however it is simple:
from p in Products where p.OrderDetails.Any( od => od.Order.Customer.Country == "USA" ) select p;
or:
Products.Where( p => p.OrderDetails.Any( od => od.Order.Customer.Country == "USA" ));
PS: Didn't understand a bit about semi-competent item. Maybe it was referring to me:)
Cetin