I am impressed (and I couldn't agree more with) by what Marco Cantù -- one of the most important Italian experts on Delphi -- recently wrote in his blog:

Native COM and Win32 code is here to stay and using it properly doesn't compromise security. This is not surprising, given the amount of new native (COM and Win32) features in Windows Vista and (even more) Windows 7. There is nothing new in recent operating systems you cannot use in a native application.

Contrary to what Microsoft envisioned or hoped or simply told us, the Windows ecosystem is not moving towards a .NET centric solution, but .NET is only a powerful and sophisticated execution and development environment on top of Windows . Which is what Delphi and the VCL are, even if at a much smaller extent due to the highly different R&D budget behind it.
The thread above is entitled "Microsoft, Native Code and Security". If you want to take a look at Marco's original post, here's the link:

http://blog.marcocantu.com/blog/micr..._security.html

I personally believe that what Marco says makes a lot of sense. Am I wrong?