Do you use Public/Protected Properties instead of Public/Protected Fields?

Public/Protected properties have a number of advantages over public/protected fields:

• Data validation
  Data validation can be performed in the get/set accessors of a public property. This is especially important when working with the Visual Studio .NET Designer.
• Increased flexibility
  Properties conceal the data storage mechanism from the user, resulting in less broken code when the class is upgraded. Properties are a recommended object-oriented practice for this reason.
• Compatibility with data binding
  You can only bind to a public property, not a field.
• Minimal performance overhead
  The performance overhead for public properties is trivial. In some situations, public fields can actually have inferior performance to public properties.

public int Count;

public int Count
{
 get
 {
 return _count;
 }
 set
 {
 _count = value; 
 }
}

We agree that the syntax is tedious and think Microsoft should improve this.