>Add to this one MS' creation of an evangelism department in Oct of 2001. That this could be a way to integrate communities right into MS' business plans cannot be dismissed. And there is only one community that REALLY matters - the .NET community, which hardly existed at the time. that there may be efforts underway to diminish OTHER communities seems very plausible to me. Many, even here, would call that a "good business decision".

Analysing the trend and purely theoretically speaking :), the next logical step might be building the .NET temples in the cities.
:)))