I bought a NetDuino because I didn't want to dish out $1000's for something like an Altera. It was nice, but probably a mistake. It's just too simple, so unless you are a beginner programmer and just want to see something basic happen, then it's probably not for you. I got lights happening to the buzzer and I'm also able to control the dimming, but after that, I left the program in there and probably haven't touched it in a month or two now...
edit: Btw, I finally got scrolling text with some BGM working so far from a little fooling around. The emulator makes it look like the end credits of a sega game.