Apparently my prior blog post about "by ref" versus "reference type" caused quite a stir and a bit of confusion. I think the underlying issue is that people confuse "by ref" as having something to do with "reference types." They are not the same.
Reference types and value types are about instances, passing by ref is about how those instances are passed in a call.
If you'd like to weigh in (and even vote on the post if you like) the discussion is taking place on a thread over at the CodeProject where they syndicate my blog. You can access it by clicking here, then scroll to the bottom. Feel free to add comments here as well if you like!