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>I can tell you that our new WPF LOB app replaces an older C++ app (functionally & visually the same as Winforms). Customers love the look and it provides them more functionality and allows them to get their work done faster.
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>1) More functionality is a business decision. "While we're retooling, let's add in this & that". I get that all the time

We all do.

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>2) Faster means you improved the time it takes to work with the data. Make it two clicks instead of 4. That kind of thing. Until the data is retreived and displyed, the user is waiting. How its displayed, pretty new WPF grid or native gridview, doesn't change the ability of the user to make decisions based on the content of what's actually being displayed in the grid.

Not necessarily. Why do you think business intelligence apps are important? They let the user slice and dice the data in different ways that gives them a different perspective on things. Think of it like this, do pie charts, line charts, and bar charts give the same meaning to data? Displaying/order/grouping in different ways does the same thing. It doesn't have to be a grid. That's what I've been trying to say.. think outside the box.

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>3) The user's impression of how it looks is really of little value. When you bought Office, or VS, or any software you spend real money on, how much thought did you really give to how it looks?

I software purchase decisions all the time based on how it looks. I can tell you I hear the same thing from our sales people and customers.

Craig Berntson
MCSD, Microsoft .Net MVP, Grape City Community Influencer