I would love Vancouver but the downside is that 1) I'm not rich enough to skip the queue and 2) the queue is 16 to 44 months long (depending on place of application). Its very high on my list of preferred locations but no joy in discussing with the immigration people.
Yeah, that's the one problem with Canada... we're too popular. :-)
The immigration rules are in the process of being changed, though (legislation currently before the parliament, I believe) to make the queue somewhat less rigid -- the current process is broken (e.g., each office must consider applications in the order they were received, even if the applicant has died in the years since they applied), so the government is putting forward a "let's consider applicants in whatever order we feel like" bill. If this passes, there's a good chance that highly qualified applicants won't have quite as long a wait in the future.
Another option, of course, is just to send in the application and let the government chew on it while you go somewhere else for a year or two.
I'm actually a dual citizen, so I can go up anytime, I believe.
You don't even need to be a dual citizen -- if you're a citizen of the US or Canada, have a job offer, and have reasonable qualifications (a Bachelor's degree in most fields is enough) you can drive up to the border, mention NAFTA, and get a visa on the spot.
are there good reasons for me to go from the bay area to Vancouver
I haven't lived in the bay area, and I don't know your circumstances, so it's hard for me to give a good answer here. I know when Google offered me a job in Mt.View, one of the factors which led me to not accept was that between Vancouver and what I had seen of the bay area, I much preferred Vancouver -- but I grew up in Vancouver, and my tastes have probably been molded by that. If you grew up in a dry, polluted, urban sprawl, you might prefer the bay area.
I imagine I would just be paying more in taxes...
Don't be so certain. Canada has publicly-funded health care, which tends to raise taxes, but it also has much lower per-capita military spending than the US. I can't make much sense out of US income tax forms, but Google found me http://dbaron.org/views/taxes-2007.html; comparing it to an analysis I did last year http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2007-05.html it looks like a single California taxpayer typically pays a marginal tax rate of about 40% of income while a single BC taxpayer typically pays a marginal rate of about 26% of income -- of course, in BC we have provincial and federal sales taxes which add a combined 12% to most things you'll be buying (does California have any sales tax? I don't know), and gasoline taxes which are higher than you have in the US. In short: I suspect that the difference between taxes you pay in the bay area and taxes you'd pay in Vancouver could be either positive or negative depending on your individual situation.
Then of course there's the issue of real estate costs: Vancouver is the most expensive place in Canada, but I understand that it's still far cheaper than the bay area...
