>Rather than add fuel to the VFP & .Net fire, shouldn't Microsoft shift VFP to replace Access? What would the technical difficulties involve? What would be the benefits? What would be the downside?

Access is a part of Office. Access targets users and power users, not advanced developers like VFP and VS does. They are totally different markets and user bases. While they both involve database solutions, there is litle overlap in the solutions created with them. It is like comparing FrontPage to ASP.NET in VS, as both create HTML web pages but how and for what type of solutions varies greatly.