2¢ from a rookie programmer here: our lead programmer graduated last year and I wound up taking his place this year. We had a bit of a hard time deciding between C++ and LabVIEW but went with C++, because I had a little experience with it and figured it was a bit easier for my brain to understand than what I'd seen of LabVIEW, heh.
With the help of a fabulous programming mentor, I've become reasonably competent in the last few months. My previous experience with programming was limited to some console applications [standard beginning-C++ stuff] and a bit of NXT G. It is so much better to jump in and start working with tangible applications. I am really enjoying working with a text-based language, but if I had to get a rookie programming team up and running I'd probably use LabVIEW, especially if they'd done NXT programming on an FLL team.
I suspect programmers' individual learning and working styles are a lot more important than the benefits of any particular language. I'm having crazy amounts of fun working with C++ and I think it'll be more of an asset to me in college than LabVIEW would have been, because I'm planning to major in computer science/programming.
WindRiver on the other hand.....not so much, heh. Not the most intuitive IDE I've encountered......
Incidentally, I once tried to get the WPI libraries running on my Mac at one point but ran into issues with the lower-down header files and so on. Is this even possible or would the lower-level architecture stuff have to be totally reworked? It would be rather cool to be able to compile code in, say, Xcode even if you still had to deploy from a PC. Annnnd I won't start the opensource/industry standard/real world debate

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Robot is now a verb.
We're back to square one...while we're at it, let's redesign square one!
Team 956: Celebrating ten years of FIRST!
Code:
Team record 2002-2011
2002: Highest Rookie Seed, AOR
2003, 2006, 2012: Xerox Creativity Award, AOR
2006: Semi-finalist, Sacramento Regional
2009: Quarter-finalist, AOR
2010: Quarter-finalist, AOR
2011: Semi-finalist, AOR, and Dean's List finalist, AOR
Personal record:
2008: Lead scout
2009: Lead scout, publicity
2010: Lead scout, publicity, fundraising, Chairman's, videography
2011: Team captain, lead programmer, fundraising, Chairman's, publicity, wrench-turning, Dean's List finalist at Autodesk Oregon Regional