Yes, Visual Basic was maybe the most popular language at the time they killed the product. Imagine picking the platform (VB6) that is supported on any computer that mattered (at the time, Windows), compiles to native code, and is also the most popular language. On top of that, your users don't need to download a 30MB .NET Framework that's in beta over a slow dial-up connection. And then, Microsoft kills it! If I'm going to invest time to create software in a popular language, it's not going to be a closed one again.
Microsoft also recently killed scripting and macro support in the latest version of Mac Office, so I imagine if you're a developer on either the Windows or Mac platform and want to script an Access Database, Excel spreadsheet, or Word Macro, you're screwed. It means you can't functionally use previously-created files any more, or use files from Windows users that use scripting. It's almost like Microsoft is helping users and developers migrate to other tools and platforms.
