PS will take the text output of any command line program and turn it into .Net strings that can then be manipulated like any other object. You can write PS cmdlets in C/C++, there is an SDK. It will also marshal COM objects into and out of the appropriate .Net types.

When dealing with output from command line apps I usually take the time to parse out the data I want from the strings and turn them into strong types if I'm writing a script...If I'm just trying to get something done with a command prompt I just do whatever gets it done the fastest.