Not disagreeing, but MS's newer stuff seems to be moving away from the "SP is best" mantra more towards local manipulation.

Someone alerted me to this one, so I had to climb back up from hibernation for a brief moment....

Underscore the word "seems" - they're not moving away, they're moving outwards in many directions.

No question, things like Vertipaq and IMBI and several areas in VS 2008/VS 2010 provide capabilities (both for developers and power users) sans stored procs. I've had people tell me that MS made some undocumented performance enhancements for dynamic SQL - not sure I've ever seen it publicized, but wouldn't surprise me.

But then again, SQL '08 provided language enhancements that are best used in sprocs, and some execution plan enhancements.

One really can't look at one side of the Rubik's cube and presume without seeing what's going on, on the other side :)