Girls want boyfriends with skills, gosh! (So do employers... you listening, Microsoft?)
And let me take this opportunity to slam Microsoft's certification process. It clearly only teaches people to pass tests (either that or the applicants lie about what certifications they have). When someone with a certification can't give you an example of why you might use an HttpModule, something just ain't right. I don't think that's a very hard question for someone that is supposed to have Microsoft's blessing.
The ASP.NET community isn't horrible, but I feel that Microsoft isn't doing everything they could to get more experienced people into the world, which can't be particularly good for moving product. The next generation stuff is a mixed bag too. The express products are good. Very good. This ridiculous fragmentation for the rest of the Visual Studio line is beyond asinine, and I'm sorely disappointed and annoyed that Microsoft is sticking to the skus they announced. Not giving every version of VS the testing tools, in a world embracing test-driven development, shows just how much marketing people don't talk to people using the product. Stupid.
It always seems like two steps forward, one step back.