I too have a soft spot for BASIC - it's a peat bog on the West coast of Scotland.
Personally, I think BASIC just got a bad rap from people's main experience being with interpretors (which were slow), as well as there not being a good way around using "goto" originally, and the name and connotations about it.
Modern BASICs have pretty much gotten rid of all those objections, but people are still put off by the name (something named "basic" can't be used for a complex program); modern versions of BASIC are fast (generally natively compiled), object oriented, structured, etc - everything a modern language should be.
Something else people don't know (and the company doesn't publicize) - see this software:
Originally, the software (prior to version 2; but I haven't used it in a loooong while, so I don't know what/where/if it is still the same - I have read it isn't) was written in VB6...
Then there was PICK Basic - arguably one of the more widely deployed and used "business" BASICs on the planet...