As you may have noticed the C++ team is really stepping up the communication lately. There have been hours of Channel 9 videos (I pointed you to some good ones) and Diego has been blogging a lot. Recently he did a long post (with references!) on Intellisense in C++/CLI - why it wasn't in Visual Studio 2010, why it didn't sneak in with SP1, and so on. Here's a level of transparency you just don't see these days:

...we simply underestimated the amount of work it would take to implement C++/CLI in this codebase, and we couldn’t change our plans by the time we realized it. ... In the end it was one of those hard cuts you have to make when dealing with the real world resource and schedule constraints. It turned out that the work was also too much work to fit into SP1. As soon as we wrapped up VS 2010, we started work on C++/CLI IntelliSense, but it wasn’t ready in time for SP1. We realize this wasn’t what you wanted to happen and an explanation doesn’t help you get your work done if you are affected by this, but we want you to know the truth.

Wow. Makes perfect sense and is actually a nicer reason than "we think you don't matter". Yet so few teams will hold their hands up and say this. It happens. It happens to every one of us pretty darn regularly. Kudos to the C++ team for not pretending it was all part of a plan from the beginning to leave it out. And do read the blog to understand just how much they were taking on.

Kate