ASP.NET have left the track?
I am a fan of ASP.NET. I have teached hundreds of peoples, written some books, have been MVP for that topic. But now I have doubts. Today I try to build a special kind of user navigation experience. I learn ASP.NET have stopped to grow since version 2.0. ASP.NET 2.0 is the most productive web (even UI ) development technology in the market. But today's needs have changed. For my site I need a Menu control which popup horizontal. Menu control is the same since 2.0 and can only vertical. Some tricks based on ASP.NET CSS friendly control adapters does not work cause the development of CSS adapters was stopped in early 2007 (or truly give over to community which is the same). My need is a second static tabbed main menu without dynamic popup. This can be set by MaximumDynamicDisplayLevels to 0. CSS Adapters ignore this setting so I cant use it.
Instead of investing in UI better new controls, extending parts like AJAX Toolkit Controlextender, ASP.NET team develops fancy stuff. Project Volta or MVC Framework. The ASP.NET MVC framework is: rewrite everything from scratch with less productivity and less controls. It looks like the early ASP times. How much people in percent needs MVC? How much needs nicer UI?
Sorry Microsoft I don't understand your goals at this point.
And it seems 4.0 will not do it better.