George,

>I really don't know, but I agree with you completely. I'd say that overriding, however, is the way to go.

Overriding to provide the operands only goes so far because internal C# pieces won't be using the custom string class. Casting regular strings just to get the operands only obfuscates the code.

>The unfortunate thing is, that while there're some terrific things in C#, I don't like some of the ways things are implemented.

So we continue the quest for that one perfect language. *bg*