Not sure I agree with that statement but will accept it. However it does not mean, or imply, that there are no valid uses of either 'out' or 'ref' in other contexts.

As a general statement, I'd agree with Craig. It's better to return a structure/collection/object, than to use multiple instances of scalar out/ref items. I don't necessary agree that the use of out/ref requires knowledge of pointers (though it wouldn't hurt)....but I would only use an out/ref if I had no other choice.

And I agree, there are inconsistencies in the development tools.