A very nice conference, with deceptively nice weather.
The conference definitely is research and academy oriented. C++ is
poorly known and quite overly disliked. Java was often mentioned, but
not the center of the world.
The most important is clearly the opportunity to meet people. There is an ECOOP community, and it is worth getting to know it.
I attended two tutorials, the integrality of the technical program (invited talks, technical sessions and one panel), plus one demo. I also took part in the evening "social" program, which was the occasion to get deeper contacts.
The most interesting points in the technical program were the invited talks by Gregor Kiczales and by Erich Gamma, and the paper by Kim Bruce. The panel had some flavours of scandal which made it quite attractive.