Visual Studio Cloud Service for Azure Development Requires IIS7

Lately I am really wondering about the utility of using the Visual Studio built-in web server for development. Last month it was causing inconsistent rendering of AJAX modal popups, this month installing the Visual Studio Cloud Service for Windows Azure development requires IIS7.

Having the built-in web server seemed like a way to minimize the system resources and attack surface of the development workstation, but it doesn’t seem as practical anymore.