Mike,
>Twelve months might be reasonable. I don't think 6 would cut it. I'd guess 12 just to do the framework and another 6-8 if we were going to have a toolset similar to VFE's. Give me 200-250 people willing to invest a grand in exchange for a copy upon release and we'll do it. :-)
Well, let's see.... How many million VB programmers are there? Looks like a good risk to me, if you know how to market it properly. Maybe get a good advance from a book publisher on a "Supercharging VB7 with the VB Express Inheritance Framework" companion book, and work out arrangements with programmer "helpers" who will help you do the conversion and write/edit the book for a cut of the *huge* profits. :-)
Done right, and marketed right, it's sure to sell in the tens of thousands, and you can sell it for much less than $1,000 to get volume.