Typing and intellisense on databases, tables and fields is what does it for me. Data source abstaction, the same syntax should work on and storeage medium. It looks and feels much more "modern". There are a plethora of ORM tools out there that "code generate" similar classes, not as well IMO. Also, here we are in 2007, using sophisticated OO languages (C# and other .NET derivatives, Java etc) and then theres T-SQL, looking like it's 1990.

What is it about academia ? Punishing people for code resuse ? Whereas in a working environment you get punished for not resuing code. Where a key metric is how quickly you can deliver and the sponsor is not the least bit interested in who wrote the code.