>As I see it, there are many employers who are completely clueless and only think in terms of hiring someone for as cheap as possible (no matter what) and, most of the time, actually wind-up paying more to get a project completed.


Exactly! Silly Dilbert-comic managers! If Fox developers are a little more expensive, but can work faster because of the nature of Fox, but VB developers are cheaper (but can't work as fast) these managers end up taking the penny-wise/pound-foolish road and end up paying more for the development of the whole system and getting it up and running later.