>Has the .NET craze ended? Has it made any progress in the "real" world?

Microsoft themselves said its adoption has been disappointing, which is of course an understatement.

A good way to put this into perspective is realizing what .NET is. Its a marketing term for the next version of Everything-Microsoft. If you look at Microsoft's previous attempts to reinvent itself (from DOS to Windows for example) it took a couple versions to catch on. .NET probably won't be too different.

Since the .NET campaign didn't fly too well you'll see another go around in about a year or two using what is now code-named Longhorn. It will most likely have a new marketing term, but it will really be the same thing as .NET, just more mature.

In any case I wouldn't let its acceptence be the determing factor in your decisions. There's good technology there, IMO.