>What real good is a "premier middle tier development tool", that being where the business rules are enforced and the data requirements are determined. This stuff would generally get only marginal benefit from OOP, common procedures/functions being just about as useful for such logic.

I don't agree either. The middle tier is where most of my code goes
these days, and it's here where good design and a well laid out
structure makes most sense. It's true deep OO is not necessary for
this but the flexibility of the language and the ability to use
OO when needed make this a good spot.

+++ Rick ---