[simoncion]

> ...can't even set the debugger to break at exceptions because they're being thrown everywhere all the time for flow control.

Any C++ debugger worth using will allow you to break on certain exceptions and ignore others. Even gdb permits this: http://sourceware.org/gdb/onlinedocs/gdb/Set-Catchpoints.htm... Any decently designed C++ program will have a sane set of exception classes that will be easy to filter when debugging.