I do have add that I am aware of the WSP/WAP problems and I also have seen numerous other posts where people are having the same issues with dnn userconrols.
In one thread "Using Web Application Projects with DNN 4.x" it seems as if the problem went away by changing the designer.vb declarations of those controls to DotNetNuke.UI.UserControls.LabelControl for example.
This does not solve my problem however.
a) the Tag definition will not work when I use:
<%@ Register TagPrefix="dnn" TagName="Label" Src="../../controls/labelcontrol.ascx" %>
Even though VS doesn't complain about the path, when switching to design view I will get an error saying that it cannot render the control because it cannot find the file "~/controls/labelcontrol.ascx" - why does VS even search in ~/controls?
b) if I copy the entire controls dir to my module dir root then ~/ obviously works but nevertheless the controls are not properly rendered and in source view they still show up as "unknown". Also I can't use the design interface to change any properties of those controls.

Am I the only one not seeing the solution here?
As it appears there are many of you out there working with VS2005 and creating custom modules and I simply cannot believe that noone else is using DNN controls. So apparently there must be a way somewhere!

Anyone enlighten me!

It seems to have something to do with this:

<%@ Control Language="vb" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeBehind="ViewProduct.ascx.vb" Inherits="BlankModule.ViewProduct" %>

This is my ViewProduct.ascx.vb

----- Code follows ------

Namespace BlankModule

Partial Public Class Product
        Inherits DotNetNuke.Entities.Modules.PortalModuleBase

        Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
            Try



            Catch ex As Exception
                ProcessModuleLoadException(Me, ex)

            End Try

        End Sub

    End Class

End Namespace


---- End of Code -----

So PRETTY please - anyone there to the rescue?