A strength for whom? Not the end user.

It depends on the user. I use the basic VBA components to build my own features (exactly how I want them). I'm happy that Microsoft isn't meddling.

The lack of basic functionalities like generics, sort functions, lambdas, is a hinderance if you got a taste of .net.

It's a hindrance to -us- but I suspect for code that's designed to be passed from SME to SME that -not- having access to features so you have to write things the ugly stupid way ... may actually be an advantage, since the next SME along only has to have a sufficient tolerance for 'ugly' rather than an understanding of the features you and I would both want.

Sorting is fine in VBA. But, I admit, it'd be sweet to have lambdas.