> Maybe LINQ to SQL could have been considered a built-in ORM?
It might be more accurate to say LINQ is built into the languages, but LINQ to SQL is a .NET platform feature, not a language feature. (Of course, the languages are so tied to the Microsoft distribution and the .NET platform that distinctions between language features, language standard library features, and platform features are, for .NET languages, somewhat academic in practice [inasmuch as there is a practical difference that is likely to matter, "does it work on Mono" is probably more important than strict language/library/platform distinctions].)