I got fed up with it too, thats why I started MHVLib, a runtime for AVRs that doesn't try and hide its nature. My design philosophy is that embedded controllers are low on resources, and the runtime should be as lean as possible. http://www.makehackvoid.com/project/MHVLib

I had a similar experience many years ago - my rant was archived for posterity thanks to the local LUG mailing list archive. Full story is here: http://lists.samba.org/archive/wireless/2003-May/002533.html