I'm trying to figure out how a language which features reified generics, covariance and contravariance, lambdas, expressions-as-data, type inference, both static and dynamic types, reflection, and anonymous types could be considered by anyone as "catering to novices" or "coddling" you. Say what you want about MS, but C# is an incredibly powerful and expressive language.
The image in the link sums it up ("...all without writing a single line of code!", which I've heard personally in Microsoft events). It's not that the languages or the framework lack advanced features, it's that Microsoft/MVP's constantly tote the "beginner" features. I find C# to be very fun to code in... so long as you avoid anything that the tool will do (or only the tool can do) for you.
