I'd be willing to argue that VB widened the pool of potential programmers more than it ruined existing programmers. I started Windows development in VB, and I moved past it in a year or two, but as a 14 year-old, I probably never would have started if my only option had been C++/MFC.

VB has a valuable place in the programming pipeline, because it helps the novice see his programs in terms of what he's used to interacting with. Starting him there lets him get a taste for it, and when he runs into a problem that VB (or AppInventor) can't handle, he says "okay, how can I solve this problem?" and moves onto the more powerful (and more esoteric) stuff. I wouldn't touch VB6 for real-world applications development today, but I readily recognize the role it played in getting me to where I am as a developer today.