Recommend me a language

I used VB 6 a while ago before I started learning some real languages. However, I still can't get over how much easier it was to make GUI applications in VB, despite how much the language itself sucked. Window toolkits for other languages are horrible to use and rarely come with a real visual editor - Tk sucks ass, Swing sucks ass, win32 API in C is either a pain in the ass or I can't figure out a good way to do it...

I haven't tried MFC or any .NET shit yet. How the hell do people write real Windows apps? Should I try something else?

It's worth noting that I do vaguely recall something about some optimization switches in javac (back when I had to deal with the horror).

So some form of optimization can go on during compilation. Does >>95 know what they're talking about (aka, links proving this, please).