I've been implementing areas, but have found that it instantiates a development server for each area when it launches Cassini.
Is this really necessary? MSDN is having me setup these areas as separate web apps, Why can't I put them into class libraries?
After much research the answer appears to be "not yet". We're still in a preview release of ASP.NET MVC v2 so I've decided I should back off until they feel really good about it.
I thought I'd jot down my experiences for those of you interested in modularizing your ASP.NET MVC projects.
Currently, whenever you do a build it basically copies all of your child projects (created for the areas) into the parent. Which works after a build HOWEVER, once you make a change to your views in an area, the change doesn't show up until you rebuild. This one hurts agility and I know the team is looking at it now.
Because of this "disconnected" project structure, you do get some flagged issues (lost intellisense) in the view which we just typically ignore (like script references etc). Just remember it's one application in the long run.
Also, the issue with that posted above. You will have seperate dev instances when debugging but it deploys as one application.
Overall, there are options to "home grow" your own modularized solution (much like CWAB did) but I'd urge you to wait for the next "supported" preview. I feel really good about this team and their abilities. Perfecting areas will really make us satisfied.