>I guess the next logical question is why would you run unsafe code.

You coudl do a search on "unsafe" in this forum and see that I brough up this difference between VB.NET and C# last month. As far as why?

"In unsafe code or in other words unmanaged code it is possible to declare and use pointers. But the question is why do we write unmanaged code? If we want to write code that interfaces with the operating system, or want to access memory mapped device or want to implement a time critical algorithm then the use of pointer can give lots of advantages."

http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/unsafe.asp