Sure, it's ubiquitous... but it's also nearly as cruft-laden as Java, and the Flash tools definitely don't reflect the years of "effort" that have gone into the

Sure, it's ubiquitous... but it's also nearly as cruft-laden as Java, and the Flash tools definitely don't reflect the years of "effort" that have gone into them. Seriously, you have to be a complete fool to CHOOSE to build an IDE on top of the bug-ridden warthog that is eclipse, do a bad job of implementing it, and then on top of that charge for it. Given the choice, I would pick Silverlight over Flash without hesitation -- because as a developer I want the tools that will let me do my job most efficiently without forcing me to do it THEIR way, and the Silverlight toolchain does precisely that. Expression Blend + Visual Studio isn't perfect, but it blows the doors off of eclipse and Flash.