Thank you for an intelligent response, although I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that I suggested writing a web app in C++. My comment was pushing the idea of gaining experience using MS's dev tools, which are unified, and thus writing a web app using the .NET platform would give him experience in Visual Studio which could/would help in his future projects.
One of the major problems that I personally encountered over and over again in my first couple of years in of professional software development was gaining access to the server in question when a problem arose. This was back in 99/2000, when broadband was widely available in the area I was in. Despite that, time and time again there would be access problems and walking people through performing the correct procedure to fix said problem was a chore. Even worse, when I entered the realm of enterprise software development quite a few of the organizations that I dealt with were just as poorly equipped to deal with problems as were the mom and pop shops. I'm speaking about organizations whose revenues exceed 50+ million per year. It is quite shocking to me to see the lack of skill present in people who are responsible for systems that drive large businesses.
So with that said, and taking your point into consideration, I'll boil my argument down to its essence: Use tools that will make your life easier. If thats .NET, great. If its an existing solution with a few modifications, great. Just realize that software development isn't just about the code, or what platform gets used, or how much of an idiot you can make other forum posters look like. When systems go into production, the human factor dominates. Anything you can do to make the life of the person supporting the production system easier will benefit you ten fold.