looked at a real VS project using multi-threading via the .Net framework. It is certainly a lot easier to do in PB (either version) and I was surprised to see the horrible amount of memory leaks in the VS implementation
You may be looking at a rather bad implementation. People make similar complaints about PowerBuilder when they see code from somebody who doesn't use it well not perform well. Speaks more to the way it was implemented rather than the tool itself. An inexperienced person hitting themselves on on the thumb with a hammer doesn't make a hammer a bad tool.