Then why are the apps (as Rick described) so bloated? What's happening to cause that?

>It can do 2 things, firstly it can produce Intermediate Language or IL (p-code as it used to be known) that then gets shoved through one of their JIT compilers to generate the native/executable code. The second option is to produce the native code at compile time which may not be as flexible if you deploy cross platform (if other vendors port/implement it). The CLR does not interprete or run the IL or native code.