jmc,
There are people who don't like typed DataSets but, in my experience, they don't know how to use them properly
I totally agree. There's no "Magic". When you use a designer there is some underlying code added. Is it Magic when you add a TextBox to a form using the IDE. It's the same concept, code is created for you. I had some mishaps using the Datasource wizard but it was because I didn't understand what I was doing. Unlike Shaggy, the more I understand about ADO .Net the more I like Typed Datasets. For the types of things I do they are my goto choice. TableAdapters or DataAdapters is just a personal choice. No matter which one you choose, you have to know what your doing and understand how to use the objects.