We do understand what MS can bring to the table, which is why we are working on the best way to integrate it without leaving a lot of people with no upgrade path (i.e. users who need partial trust and can't get their hosters to install specific software in the GAC).

I never suggested turning your back on the toolkit.  I only brought about the analogy to the stuff I wrote to help explain some anticipated difficulties with versioning down the road.  If you read some of my past blogs when I discussed Atals, I freely admitted that on a framework level, MS will have almost anyone beat, for that is what they do best.

Just so everyone knows my long term plan with the ClientAPI and webcontrols.  IF we ever are able to Require (i.e. not optional) MS AJAX as part of DNN, I will be converting most of the ClientAPI to use the MS AJAX framework underneath.  The namespaces will all stay the same and so should compatiblity (more or less the CAPI will become a wrapper).  There are things that currently only the ClientAPI support (for example batch script loading from the client that a developer can use).  Additionally, the controls I have written most likely will be converted as well.  Who knows, you may soon see some of them as part of the Ajax Toolkit

Good discussion!

We live in interesting times...

Upgraded to 4.5.3, now the error are gone :-)