This seems like a huge over reaction, and bordering on misinformation.

First of all, for the longest time there were no free versions of Visual Studio for producing any kind of application.

Second, even the recent "Express" versions have always been severely crippled. Where were the "No-cost 64-bit development is Dead on Windows 7" when the previous Express versions were released?

The Express versions are more like promotional tools than real versions of VS. For any serious development you'll probably need to buy a VS license anyway.