LINQ for us was a huge productivity improvement as we didn't have to generate stored procedures anymore for our CRUD database operations. Because we had a rule that ALL data access was via stored procedures, everytime we had a new processing operation or new search situation, we either had to adapt an exisitng stored procedure or create a new one. Then we had to create a method in our data layer to make the call to the stored procedure.
Now with LINQ we can create a new method in our data layer. Saves time and the generated SQL is not too bad. One thing going against LINQ is that it's very easy to start putting LINQ queries in your UI (aka inline SQL from the old days).
Learning LINQ is a challenge. More specifically doing things that come naturally in TSQL are challenging. I have found it quicker to create a few stored procedures to do some complex queries and call them through the data context.
Never fear LINQPad is here. Very similar to management studio you can connect to servers, run queries against databases. I have found it to be a great tool for learning LINQ.
Happy LINQing.
