You're right about the PITA, and they start out seeming like a wildly complicated and painfully documented dog's breakfast. I'm happy that .net CORE is moving t

You're right about the PITA, and they start out seeming like a wildly complicated and painfully documented dog's breakfast. I'm happy that .net CORE is moving to dynamic inclusion via "magic" However, once you are used to CSPROJ, they're actually ok to understand & merge. Additionally, if you're a c# shop, using msbuild & msdeploy gives you a lot more than hand rolling 100% of your compilation tools. If you stick to the framework, you save money. Occasional minor merge conflicts around file includes are minor relative the the ability to step-through-debug the code and get project wide code completion via intellisense.