From a VB6/VC++ 6.0 perspective, this isn't far off.

Visual Studio 2002 and 2003 were versions #1 and 2 (yes, I know Marketing didn't call them that).  Visual Studio 2005 is where things will really "work".

Generics, decent MC++, ease-of-use in VB.NET, CLR in SQL, etc.  All stuff that "should" have been in the first release.

There will probably be a lot of people going from VB6/VC++ 6.0 straight to Visual Studio 2005, skipping 2002 and 2003.