>I am now certain that MSDN is a suitable (though significantly more expensive) alternative to VS.

Jim,

I wrestled with the MSDN Universal Subscription cost for quite a while. My decision to upgrade from the Library subscription came when I started adding up the cost of other programs I need/use: Office (you get the Developer Edition) and Visio. The seemingly high cost becomes a wash when you consider the entire package even though it's a big chunk of change for an independent developer.