Might have to try to use U++ with Visual Studio for the first time.
It is quite useful to use Visual Studio just for debugging, as 'external debugger' (defined in build method alt+f5).
As for theide looking ugly, I guess it is something we should concentrate on this year... My prefered idea is to create independent team for this, retaining the basic codebase (like builders, maybe CodeEditor) and build something new and shiny on that (while perhaps retaining current theide as it is).