Back in 2000 (when .NET was unleashed upon us IIRC) it was an innovative cutting edge language (last time I used it was 2003).
From what I read though, Sun has only evolved the language exceedingly slowly. I've even read that where the language has evolved, such as the addition of Generics, developers have complained about poor implementation.
Are these accurate perceptions, and if so, any thoughts on why, particularly with the seemingly obvious competition from C#?
Most languages have one strong hand involved in their origin and evolution. Think: Larry Wall/Perl, Guido/Python, Matz/Ruby, Odersky/Scala, Hickey/Clojure, etc. These guys are all brilliant language dudes. I'd give my left arm to be half as smart as any of them.
Java has actually had the distinction of having not just one but a series of amazing language guys at the helm - starting with Gosling, but I also think of Guy Steele, Bill Joy, Gilad Bracha, Neal Gafter, etc - all amazing guys. That actually has been a good thing (I think). It's made the language better but prevented stagnation.
But for the last couple years, there's been a real vacuum of language leadership. At the moment, no one's minding the store. No one's making the hard decisions about what fits with the Java mold and makes sense to add (or more importantly to not add). I don't know what that means. I'm hopeful that the enormous popularity and reach of Java and the strong base of the JVM mean that this vacuum is too attractive not to be filled and given direction at some point. But I'm only cautiously hopeful because I don't know who that will be.
John Rose is that dude on the JVM side. Though if I can only get innovation in one or the other, I'd take JVM right now anyways. :)