.Net is also well designed. Some of the most subtle design choices drastically exaggerate poor choices in other languages - one example that has always stuck with me is how well C# namespaces are designed. Not only because they are frictionless, but also because of the lack of global namespace types in the standard library. It's a tiny detail, but .Net is just that: hundreds of well-executed small details.

I think the only way you get this is having someone very, very experienced leading the project. MS had Anders Hejlsberg, who hasn't done much in life, except leading the Turbo Pascal and Delphi efforts, two of the most successful rapid app design languages of the 90s (note: heavy sarcasm in last sentence)

I'm not one bit surprised this is the the guy leading the C# effort's second or third language.

I disagree with you about namespaces. I find Java's packages more useful since they give you access control which increases encapsulation. If I want a factory method guarding the instantiation of a class in java I can make the factory public and the class package private. In C# the only answer for this type of encapsulation are assemblies but they're much heavier weight and it is recommended not to have too many of them in a project.

You can make the constructors on the class private and have a public static method on the class that does the instantiation.

For the simple case yes. But if you want several classes cooperating, maybe helpers or related data classes, your options are assemblies or like you said to shove everything into one giant class. You have less flexibility of separating things out.