When talking about human readability, that would be why I would be as
complete as possible.  Obviously, if the casting was not required, leave it
out, I just didn't know better.

in the case of a single if statement, I find the shorthand cumbersome and
difficult to read.  Any thoughts?

I get lost when I see
[C#}
if (foo==bar)
 //do something

Where as this is highly readble to me
{C#]
if (foo==bar)
{
 //do something
}

Conversly, this seem readable to me
[VB]
if foo = bar then 'Do something

My biggest hang up with c sharp is that I am an old vb developer and the
c-like syntanx can get rough to read.  I attempt to write complete code when
I make use of the language.

Another hangup I have is:

 string[] mystring =
   "1,2,3,4,5".split(",");

Maybe it is just becuse it is missing the "_".  Only in vb we wouldn't be
able to use "_" there.  Not to mention the use of variables with case
differences.

private object apple = null;

object Apple()
{
 get{return apple;}
 set{apple = value;}
}

I do like the quick and dirty property construct, I don't like that it is
not easily described as a property, that the understood value is the
underlying setter value.

All of these things make the langauge not easily human readable.  Perhaps
programmer readable, but for one that has experience with c-like languages.
Don't get me wrong, I like c-sharp well enough, I just wish that the VB
constructs and languages were closer to the c-like cousins and then tasking
between the two wouldn't be so bad.

After all, in vb to convert the string to the array:

Dim myStrings() as String = "1,2,3,4,5".Split(",")

that is how I would do it there, knowing that the compiler will not have to
worry about any conversions.

So while this is preferred

string[] myString = "1,2,3,4,5".split(",");

Where is it made clear to use the type casting and not to use it?