cpjust, can you vouch for the VS development team and summarize why they do this? Or is this common in other debuggers? To me it seems like they're saying "If you make mistakes when it doesn't matter (debug build), its OK we're protecting you. If you make mistakes when it does matter (release build) you're screwed."
Of course when releasing software, our job is to sufficiently test it, and not rely on a compiler/debugger saying it works or not. But isn't, by the debug mode being less strict, just adding to the potential for errors slipping through?
EDIT: I just wanted to clarify I'm not anti-Microsoft (though not necessarily pro-Microsoft), so it isn't about just trying to point them out. VS is an unbelievably good piece of software.