I didn't use it as much, but my recollection is of Delphi being a much more coherent product than VB ever was. This probably stems naturally from the way the two products came into being.

Delphi evolved from a compiler with full access to the underlying Windows API, with a GUI builder and framework layered on top. Drag a control into a form, and it was fairly easy to see the code behind it down to the layer of the Win32 API itself.

In contract, VB started out as a point and click builder for custom Program Manager like tools, and then had MS Basic attached. You could drag a control into a form, but then there was a very clear delineation between the code you could write as a VB developer and the hidden, opaque code provided by VB itself.

Yeah though FWIW Delphi was also a much more intimidating product to get into while VB was like a drawing program where you draw a GUI (there is even a color palette!) instead of a picture and then put some bit of logic - the IDE even tried to avoid intimidating you via your own code by only showing a single routine at a time.

Though Delphi's components were always meant to be for both visual and non-visual uses (TControl, from which other visual controls descent, is just a subclass of TComponent).