Ok, so before I delve into my solution, I decided to go through the Visual Studio Sharepoint Exensions 1.3 to see if the sales pitch matched expectations. I wanted to try out the various templates and the new deployment methods, so I started with the Team Template, and added a custom list, and a new Theme (deployed and activated via a feature).This compiled and deployed without a hitch, so far so good. Then tried a few other templates to build a few features and web parts. Have to say, at this point I was impressed.
Finally, I thought I'd check out the workflow templates. Hmm, launching the template says that this only works on 32 bit Sharepoint environments, bit of a drawback now as on my laptop I have Windows 7 (which doesn't run Sharpeoint very well), and Windows 2008 r2 (which is 64 bit only). So after a fine start, looks like the extensions are going to let me down on the workflow front. Now there may be a patch due out, but if R2 is hoing to be the new server O/S, you really wouldn't expect to have to drop to an older version of Windows server just to do your development. So, lets hope this gets resolved p.d.q.
In the meantime, looks like I'll have to build the Workflow packages the old fashioned way........ 7 out of 10 must try harder......