I always considered .NET a step backwards, versus doing something similar to what Borland was doing with Delphi/C++ Builder, meaning C# and VC++ should have provided better tooling based on COM, and then follow up with VB7.
Ironically, when they tried to actually do that, with WinRT, they messed up the whole execution.
I used it for decades when I was young, and I have never again used anything that was as good, as simple, as precise and as feature-complete. Debugging in VB6 was incredible. An incredible feat that I'm not sure has been repeated since? Perhaps the debugging capabilities of MSVC has caught up these days, in which case, kudos to them.
Maybe something exists today in the form of webdev? I wouldn't know as I'm stuck in the deep-end (backend).
I have used .NET the last few years. I made a full desktop application for someone, and I also wrote a map/level editor for a game in it. I have to say that I like C# a lot, but I don't like the editor, I don't like the graphical construction source file, because it's so easy to break your GUI. And I also hated the fact that drawing was slow on .NET no matter how hard I tried to make it fast.
Debugging in .NET is just as it used to be on VB6, not sure what you would still be missing from those days.
As for breaking the GUI, it wasn't as if frm files were foolproof.
Point is thought this was there out the box with VB.
Apparently last modified 8 days ago, with a history of infrequent but steady commits.
Caveat: Unfortunately only talks about Windows.