Such bitterness.

Let's see, when was the last time I paid any attention to what individual patches were and how many were .NET vs other parts of Windows? That wouldn't be never, but it has been a long time. Whenever you have an OS running the majority of systems, you have a huge attack surface. If one part is more prone than another, that's a matter of degree, at best.

So, what is it that would make you happy? VB6 also had a framework. It was smaller. If .NET compiled down to a smaller footprint, would that be enough to make you happy? Would you then embrace .NET as the wonderful new thing, or would you find something else to carp about? You'd still have security patches, and at about the same rate, though perhaps they might be somewhat smalller, so it's hard to believe that you would be satisfied with that. Would you prefer that MS abandon making any compilers for anything other than non-proprietary languages (nothing but C/C++ and MASM)?

I'd like to see .NET compiling to native code rather than IL, which would provide some advantage. You can get tools that do this, though I think they are all third party, but I also doubt that would make the anti-.NET people happy. I've always felt that the real motivation there was a dogged resistance to change, and all the rest is just excuses to justify the underlying emotion.