I put a "little" time into learning WPF and can crank out straight-foward forms (similar to WinForms but usually a bit better) fairly easily. I like its open-ended feel, courtesy of XAML, and as long as I don't try to spiff things up too much it's as productive as Winforms. For the devotees (count me out, I have another life) it has a lot of potential.

>I think that's a dead end.
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>As much as like HTML and CSS, using it for windows development looks very painful. And since it's proprietary anyway there doesn't seem to be much point in doing this since you can't easily port it to anything else.
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>On top of that Microsoft uses a really JavaScript unfriendly object hierarchy that makes it very unnatural to use with JavaScript.
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>If you're going to go down the Windows 8 RT route, then XAML is a better choice.
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>THe problem for - as it is for you I think - is deciding which UI technology to choose for desktop. I find WPF overly complex and unintuitive coming from a Web background. I can make it work but to build something that really looks nice and smooth I feel it goes way beyond my basic design skills and it needs a dedicated designer to make things right. WPF is extremely powerful, but beyond the basics - like dealing with themeable UIs, Resources and proper MVVM UI binding, it's not a trivial task to get there. Even to make a reasonably 'standard' looking UI with WPF IMHO is a daunting task.
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>I'm still on the fence and Windows RT introduction hasn't helped this any...
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>I should stick to Web apps me thinks :-)
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>+++ Rick ---
>
>>>Hi,
>>>
>>>I have been tasked with developing a desktop application which involves a fair bit of heads down data entry. I have always wanted to do a XAML application but never had the chance before. Is XAML and WPF something I should consider for this project or has this technology been replaced by something newer?
>>
>>We did some projects in Silverlight, but to tell it straight, XAML is a steep learning curve and if you are not sure of its future use it could mean a lot of wasted hours.
>>
>>I watched WIndows Jumpstart about HTML5 and JavaScript + CSS using VS2012 and was quite intrigued by its possibilities. Only this approach is not cross platform, its mainly for Windows8.