>Larry, any idea if this fact gives us any hooks into the CLR ? ...

Absolutely no hooks at all. VC++ is unique in that it can generate managed code (code that uses the CLR as its runtime library) and unmanaged code (code that uses the VC++ runtime library). The two outputs are mutually exclusive.

There are .NET classes that allow COM objects to access functionality exposed by .NET objects and vice versa (COM interop). That is the only hook.