Hi Rick,
Interesting.
As you know the problem with Visual Studio Pro is that it's only free for the first 3 years and it is not open source. So it is very nice, easy to use and customize but will always be for a smaller community.
It would be really great to find a simple to install and well featured Eclipse system that we could all contribute to. I'll be watching with interest at both your solution and the Arduino Plugin for Eclipse 
Best of luck, Tim