Its only been a few days, but CodeSmith has the potential of really changing how I write applications, and it will DEFINITELY reduce the time I spend coding those applications.
With CodeSmith I can, in literally a minute or two, create a fully functional business object which is defined by the app, not the database. Another minute to generate a collection class for the object. Then a .cst template (I wrote mostly from scratch--the scripting language of CodeSmith is very straightforward) to load in a single item into the collection from the business object. Finally a template to create the SQLHelper .Addparams statements and update the table through a CodeSmith generated stored procedure.
These 4 or 5 processes cover all of the steps in a typical application to create a business object to populate a form or fill a list, and to pass an updated business object back from an edited form to a stored procedure. The only thing requiring original coding in this scenario is creating the edit form itself (and a with strongly typed this is even simplified.) With CodeSmith templates, all of the data handling code is created in a matter of minutes, or rather, WILL be a matter of only minutes once I round-out and fine-tune my template arsenal.
btw, I spent the $79 to get the Professional Version (the CodeSmith Studio editor) and its worth every penny.