>I'd agree that 'out' would be cumbersome with more than one (or possibly two) parameters. But how would you write a better version of TryParse() ?

Probably we will disagree in the definition of better :)

I try to avoid out and ref parameters as much as I can, not sure if it is a good thing or not, but it is who I am, in the case of TryParse I would return null if it was not successful and the code would be almost the same, take for, for example, the sample code from the help:

string[] dateStrings = {"05/01/2009 14:57:32.8", "2009-05-01 14:57:32.8", 
                        "2009-05-01T14:57:32.8375298-04:00", 
                        "5/01/2008 14:57:32.80 -07:00", 
                        "1 May 2008 2:57:32.8 PM", "16-05-2009 1:00:32 PM", 
                        "Fri, 15 May 2009 20:10:57 GMT" };
DateTime dateValue;

Console.WriteLine("Attempting to parse strings using {0} culture.", 
                  CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.Name);
foreach (string dateString in dateStrings)
{
   if (DateTime.TryParse(dateString, out dateValue)) 
      Console.WriteLine("  Converted '{0}' to {1} ({2}).", dateString, 
                        dateValue, dateValue.Kind);
   else
      Console.WriteLine("  Unable to parse '{0}'.", dateString);
}

Very simple to change, assuming that TryParse returns null for a failed attempt:

string[] dateStrings = {"05/01/2009 14:57:32.8", "2009-05-01 14:57:32.8", 
                        "2009-05-01T14:57:32.8375298-04:00", 
                        "5/01/2008 14:57:32.80 -07:00", 
                        "1 May 2008 2:57:32.8 PM", "16-05-2009 1:00:32 PM", 
                        "Fri, 15 May 2009 20:10:57 GMT" };
DateTime? dateValue;

Console.WriteLine("Attempting to parse strings using {0} culture.", 
                  CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.Name);

foreach (string dateString in dateStrings)
{  dateValue = (DateTime.TryParse(dateString) 
   if (dateValue != null)
      Console.WriteLine("  Converted '{0}' to {1} ({2}).", dateString, 
                        dateValue, dateValue.Kind);
   else
      Console.WriteLine("  Unable to parse '{0}'.", dateString);
}

So just a change in the declaration of dateValue and an extra line to do first the assignment and then the test instead of having all in one go, a little price to avoid the awful out :) (of course you might argue that null is even worse, but I never understood why it is treated with such distrust)