>>But a lot of the "change" out there these days seems to require you to take 2 steps forward and 2 steps back
I'm probably missing something so please enlighten me.

When using VFP with a SQL backend, I used SQL PT by passing parameters to stored procedures.
I've converted some of those apps to C# and I use parameterized SQL commands exactly the way I used SQL PT to call those same stored procedures which I use exactly as they are.
I tried Linq to SQL and I liked its elegant simplicity, , but I find that this method gives me more predictable performance.
The C# code is certainly a lot more verbose than the VFP code was, but intellisense does most of the work so I actually code faster than I did with VFP.
I find the C# apps easier to deploy than the VFP apps and because of the incredible power of intellisense I spend a fraction of the time I used to spend debugging. In retrospect, I think I'd switch to C# just to get the intellisense.
How have I gone backwards?