While developer productivity is important, I tried to avoid suggesting that one set of tools were better than an other - for reasons that I hoped would be evident. That said - not sure - but I think the IntelliSense overload in VS2010 gets in the way as often as it helps. The great thing about learning other languages and frameworks, is that you discover what works (or not) and why. In my case - it was liberating to be able to build and deploy a complete solution - for free. Linux and FOSS gave me that choice.
I think that's right - it has to be fun. There might be not-so-fun parts in every project - but overall, it has to be fun. Thanks for positive feedback.