You are comparing VS6 to something current, which is not fair. Lots of these hitches you've had (which I don't doubt, since I've been forced to deal with some old VB6 projects) has been fixed long time ago.
I'm not saying Visual Studio 2008 is flawless, perfect or the second coming of Christ(tm), but in general I've had very few issues with it.
Whether it's fair or not, I can only knowledgeably critique what I
know. However, I've heard (and propogated) this basic comment
describing the robust solid development experience that is Visual
Studio for more years than VS.NET (or, obviously, 2008) has been
around.
(Not that VS6 is terrible--I still think it's a serviceable IDE for
small to medium sized projects. However, it doesn't scale well to our
large projects, and, personally, I've found that IDEs in general
foster a lazy attitude towards improving personal workflow)
I'm not saying Visual Studio 2008 is flawless, perfect or the second coming of Christ(tm), but in general I've had very few issues with it.